XMM-Newton Observation of GRB030227

Events

  • GRB030227 was discovered  by INTEGRAL on February 27, 2003 at 08:42 UT in the field of view of the IBIS telescope (Gotz et al. GCN1895).
  • The notification arrived to VILSPA at 10:00 UT. At that time XMM-Newton was at Perigee, and the GRB was immediately approved by the XMM-Newton SOC for a ToO observation at the beginning of revolution 590, which was starting at 11:09 UT.
  • Revolution 590 was re-scheduled, and the new POS file was exported at 11:37 UT.
  • The observation was started on 2003-02-27 at 16:39:39.UT under ObsId=0128531201, for a total of 49 ksec. The pointing coordinates were RA=04:57:29, Dec=+20:29:23 as reported in GCN1895, with an uncertainty of 5 arcminutes.
  • Already after the first 1000 sec of exposure, two sources were clearly present in the MOS field of view (Loiseau et al. GCN1901), one of them within the refined IBIS position reported by Gotz et al. GCN1896.
    The strongest source (0.2 counts/sec in EPIC-pn) was at RA=04:57:33.3, Dec=20:29:04. This position is still subject to an uncertainty of about 4 arcseconds.
    There was a second, fainter source, at RA=04:57:17, Dec=+20:30:18.
    After preliminary processing of the data this source turned out to be a nearby magnitude 9.5 star, the observed counts being due to optical photons.
  • The exposure had to be interrupted due to a high radiation level. Final exposure times were 38 ksec for MOS1 and MOS2, 36 ksec for pn, and 48 ksec for RGS1 and RGS2.
  • Possible optical counterparts within the XMM error box have been reported by Castro-Tirado et al. (GCN1904) and Soderberg et al. (GCN1907).
  • The data presented here are based on a preliminary processing without the re-constituted XMM-Newton Attitude History File. Therefore, the positions quoted are subject to an uncertainty of 4 arcseconds.

Data

  • The Observation Data File (ODF) is available here as 0128531201.tar.gz
  • The Pipeline Products are now also available in the ftp area. Details of the Pipeline process can be found here

Preview of XMM-Newton images (click on the images to see high resolution versions)

The IBAS position of GRB030227 and its reported uncertainty are marked by the circle.

MOS image

MOS

PN image of the full FOV

PN

Quick look analysis

PN light curve

PN light curve of GRB030227 between 0.5 and 2 keV (background subtracted). The data indicate a clear fading of the source along the XMM-Newton observation.

PN lc

EPIC spectra

PN and MOS2 spectra of GRB030227. The spectra are consistent with an Hydrogen column density of 3.2 1021 cm-2, slightly higher than the galactic value of 2.2 1021 cm-2 in this direction. The flux in the 2-10 keV band is approximately 5.5 10 -13 erg cm-2 s-1

Spectra