[vsnet-grb-info 17268] Swift-BAT probable detection of an outburst from SGR J1819-1600 (AX J1818.8-1559)

[GCN Circulars]

TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  18632
SUBJECT: Swift-BAT probable detection of an outburst from SGR J1819-1600 (AX J1818.8-1559)
DATE:    15/11/22 12:50:16 GMT
FROM:    Scott Barthelmy at NASA/GSFC  <scott at lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov>

K. L. Page (U Leicester), S. Barthelmy (GSFC),  and J. R. Cummings (NASA/UMBC)
report on behalf of the Swift Team:

At 12:09:38 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and
located a an SGR or a short GRB (trigger=664624).  Swift did not slew due to 
Sun constraint.  The BAT on-board calculated location is
RA, Dec 274.742, -15.978, which is
   RA(J2000)  = +18h 18m 58s
   Dec(J2000) = -15d 58' 40"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including
systematic uncertainty).  The BAT light curve shows a single spike
with a duration of less than 0.128 sec.  The peak count rate
was ~2500 counts/sec (15-350 keV), at ~0 sec after the trigger.

Due to a Sun observing constraint, Swift cannot slew to the BAT
position until 11:19 UT on 2016 February 10. There will thus be no XRT
or UVOT data for this trigger before this time.

We note that this is 1.7 arcmin from an INTEGRAL burst on 071017
which also was a short duration (~0.5 sec) (GCN Circ 6927) event.
And therefore we strongly suspect that this new event is an
SGR J1819-1600 (aka AX J1818.8-1559).

Burst Advocate for this burst is K. L. Page (klp5 AT leicester.ac.uk).
Please contact the BA by email if you require additional information
regarding Swift followup of this burst. In extremely urgent cases, after
trying the Burst Advocate, you can contact the Swift PI by phone (see
Swift TOO web site for information: http://www.swift.psu.edu/too.html.)