TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 42528 SUBJECT: GRB 251031A: Swift/BAT-GUANO localization skymap of a burst DATE: 25/10/31 18:52:57 GMT FROM: Jimmy DeLaunay at Penn State delauj2@gmail.com
James DeLaunay (PSU), Samuele Ronchini (GSSI), Aaron Tohuvavohu (Cosmic Frontier), Jamie A. Kennea (PSU), Tyler Parsotan (NASA GSFC), Maia Williams (Northwestern) report:
Swift/BAT did not localize GRB 251031A onboard (T0: 2025-10-31T07:21:00.49 UTC, Fermi Trig 783588065)
The Fermi notice, distributed in near real-time, triggered the Swift Mission Operations Center operated Gamma-ray Urgent Archiver for Novel Opportunities (GUANO; Tohuvavohu et al. 2020, ApJ, 900, 1).
Upon trigger by this notice, GUANO sent a command to the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) to save 200 seconds of BAT event-mode data from [-50,+150] seconds around the time of the burst. All the requested event mode data was delivered to the ground.
The BAT likelihood search, NITRATES (DeLaunay + Tohuvavohu 2022, ApJ, 941, 169), performed on the temporal window [T0-20 s, T0+20 s], detects the burst with a sqrt(TS) of 8.4 in a 16.384 s analysis time bin, starting at T0 + 8.192 s.
Using the NITRATES analysis, parameter estimation was performed to obtain the localization of this burst in the form of a HEALPIX Multi-Order Coverage (MOC) skymap. This localization accounts for both statistical and systematic errors. More details in the creation and calibration of these maps will soon be published (DeLaunay et al. 2025. in prep)
The 90% credible area is 8,620 deg2 and the 50% credible area is 269 deg2. The integrated probability inside the coded field of view is 1%.
The NITRATES skymap is consistent with the Fermi localization reported in the final position notice (GCN 42525). The combined Fermi/GBM+NITRATES 90% credible area is 168 deg2 and the 50% credible area is 47 deg2.
A plot of the probability skymap can be viewed here:
[skymap_plot](https://guano.swift.psu.edu/trigger_report?id=783588097/#:~:text=Probability...)
The probability skymap and joint skymap files can be downloaded from the links here
[skymap_fits_file](https://guano.swift.psu.edu/files/783588097/0_n_PROBMAP)
[joint_skymap_fits_file](https://guano.swift.psu.edu/files/783588097/0_n_JOINTMAP)
Instructions on how to read and manipulate this map can be found here:
https://guano.swift.psu.edu/documentation
More details about this burst can be found on the trigger report page here:
https://guano.swift.psu.edu/trigger_report?id=783588097
GUANO is a fully autonomous, extremely low latency, spacecraft commanding pipeline designed for targeted recovery of BAT event mode data around the times of compelling astrophysical events to enable more sensitive GRB searches.
A live reporting of Swift/BAT event data recovered by GUANO can be found at: https://www.swift.psu.edu/guano/
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/42528. --- To unsubscribe, open this link in a web browser: https://gcn.nasa.gov/unsubscribe/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJlbWFpbCI6InZzbmV0LW...