# The optical/IR counterpart of the 3 July 1998 gamma-ray burst and its evolution1footnote 11footnote 1 Based on observations collected at the Observatorio del Teide, operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC); at the German-Spanish Astronomical Center, Calar-Alto, operated by the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, jointly with the Spanish National Commission for Astronomy; at the U. S. Naval Observatory, and with the Nordic Optical Telescope, operated on the island of La Palma jointly by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the IAC.

## 1 Introduction

Gamma–ray bursts (GRBs hereafter) are brief flashes of cosmic high energy photons. With the advent of the BeppoSAX satellite, it has been possible for the first time to perform deep multiwavelength searches hours after the event, allowing detection in a few cases of transient emission associated with the GRB. The modelling of the afterglow decay is well understood but their central engines remain enigmatic.

GRB 980703 was detected on 1998 July 3.182465 UT by the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on board the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (Kippen et al. 1998), the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) (Levine, Morgan and Nuno 1998) and the GRB Monitor on BeppoSAX (Amati et al. 1998). The X–ray flux as seen by RXTE (2–10 keV) began to rise 18 s before the BATSE flux trigger (#6891) and the GRB position was constrained to a 12 $`\times `$ 12 diamond-shaped error box (Smith et al. 1998). The duration as seen by BATSE was about 400 s with two well distinguished peaks, each of them lasting about 100 s, reaching a peak flux (50–300 keV, integrated over 1 s) of 2.58 $`\pm `$ 0.12 photons cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and a fluence ($``$ 20 keV) of 6.2 ($`\pm `$ 0.4) $`\times `$ 10<sup>-5</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> (Kippen et al. 1998).

After 22 hours, the BeppoSAX X-ray satellite was reoriented towards the burst location, and one previously unknown X–ray source (labelled 1SAX J2359.1+0835) was detected within the error box provided by RXTE (Galama et al. 1998a). The observed flux (2-10 keV) during the first 8,200-s was found to be 7.3 $`\times `$ 10<sup>-13</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, decreasing in the following 30,000 s to 4.8 $`\times `$ 10<sup>-13</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, implying a decay index $`\alpha _X`$ of 1.05$`{}_{0.29}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.23}`$ (Vreeswijk et al. 1998), asuming a power-law decay of the flux F $``$ t$`^{\alpha _X}`$. This decay supports its identification as the X-ray afterglow of GRB 980703.

A comparison among the R-band frames acquired on July 4 and July 6 allowed us to search for variable objects within a 2 radius circle centered at the position of the variable X-ray source presumably related to the GRB. The position of the optical transient reported by Zapatero-Osorio et al. (1998a,b), is consistent with the position of the source discovered independently of us by Frail et al. (1998a).

Djorgovski et al. (1998a) discovered a host galaxy to GRB 980703 which lies at a redshift z = 0.966 (Djorgovski et al. 1998b). This implies that the isotropic energy release was $``$ 10<sup>53</sup> erg assuming a standard Friedman model cosmology with $`H_0`$ = 65 km s<sup>-1</sup> Mpc<sup>-1</sup> and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ = 0.2. Here we present the optical and near-infrared observations carried out by us soon after the occurrence of the high-energy event.

## 2 Observations and Data Reductions

The observations in the Johnson R-band were obtained on July 4, 6 and 7 using the 0.8-m telescope located at the Observatorio del Teide. The CCD used was a Thomson 1024 $`\times `$ 1024 mounted on the Cassegrain focus and providing a field of view of 7.4 $`\times `$ 7.4. On the first night (July 4), the telescope was pointed at four different positions (an offset of 3 arcmin was applied both in RA and DEC) covering an area of 109.5 arcmin<sup>2</sup> around the RXTE central coordinates. In this way about 90% of the diamond-shaped error box of RXTE (Smith et al. 1998) was surveyed in the R-filter. The optical transient reported in this paper appeared in three of the four frames. On the following two observing nights, we pointed toward 1SAX J2359.1+0835, which was proposed to be the candidate for the X-ray afterglow of GRB 980703. Exposure times were typically 1800 s per image. Weather conditions during the three nights were photometric, however no standard star observations were obtained. The seeing ranged between 1.5 and 1.9 arcsec. Raw frames were processed with standard techniques using routines within the IRAF<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2IRAF is distributed by National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under contract with the National Science Foundation. (Image Reduction and Analysis Facility) environment, which included bias substraction, flat-fielding (using flat images obtained during twilight) and correction for bad pixels by interpolation with values from the nearest-neighbour pixels. A common area of 9.8 arcmin<sup>2</sup> was covered during all three observing nights. Instrumental magnitudes were obtained using the DAOPHOT package (Stetson 1992, and references therein), and were transformed into Cousins R photometry adopting calibrated data for this field provided by Rhoads et al. (1998), who used observations of several Landolt (1992) photometric standard stars. Uncertainties quoted for our R measurements in Table 2 come from quadratic combination of the dispersion in the photometric calibration (typically $`\pm `$0.03 mag) and the intrinsic errors of the instrumental magnitudes. The limiting R magnitude is 22.7 in all images. Additional R-band data were obtained with the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) on July 7.163 UT (and the Standby Camera, StanCam) and July 20.172 UT (and the Andalucía Faint Object Spectrograph Camera, ALFOSC).

Near-simultaneous observations were obtained in the H-band with the 3.5-m telescope (equipped with Omega) at Calar Alto (CAHA). Omega is a near-IR detector with a 1024 $`\times `$ 1024 pixel HgCdTe array. The image scale is 0.4<sup>′′</sup>/pixel giving a field of view of 6.8 $`\times `$ 6.8 (Bizenberger et al. 1998). We obtained H-band images beginning 22 h 38 min after the event (July 4.125 UT). The field was centered on the initial GRB location provided by RXTE. A 10<sup>′′</sup> dithering around the GRB coordinates was performed, thus obtaining five frames (120-s each) in order to determine and subtract the background from each of the individual images.

Another set of images were obtained at CAHA two days after, following a different pattern (9 frames, 120-s each). A further observation was obtained on Aug 9 at the 3.5-m CAHA. A 3$`\times `$3 mosaic was performed, with each position being observed 28 s. The mosaic was repeated 14 times, thus giving a total on-source exposure of 3538-s. The H-band calibration is based on the observations of the nearby UKIRT (UK Infrared Telescope) faint standard FS 3 (Cassali & Hawarden 1992; Hunt et al. 1998) under photometric conditions on Aug 9, just before observing the GRB 980703 field.

Additional observations were also obtained with the U. S. Naval Observatory (USNO) Flagstaff Station 1.55-m telescope and the Infrared Camera (IRCAM). IRCAM is a near-IR camera with a 256 $`\times `$ 256 pixel Rockwell/NICMOS HgCdTe array. The image scale is 0.54<sup>′′</sup>/pixel giving a field of view of 2.3 $`\times `$ 2.3. Imaging in the H-band was performed on July 4.458 and 8.459 under photometric conditions (see Henden et al. 1998a,b for the preliminary results).

All the H-band data points were obtained with the same secondary standard, a star at 12<sup>′′</sup> W and 10<sup>′′</sup> S from the OT, with H = 15.52 $`\pm `$ 0.05. Photometry was performed by means of SExtractor 2.0 (Bertin and Arnouts 1996), making use of the corrected isophotal magnitude, which is very appropriate for star-like objects. A log of these optical/IR observations is given in Table 1. Magnitudes are given in Table 2.

## 3 Results and Discussion

As we have already mentioned, a comparison among the R-band frames acquired on July 4 and July 6 allowed us to search for variable objects within a 2 radius circle centered at the position of the variable X-ray source presumably related to the GRB. With the exception of one source (Fig. 1), no object brighter than R $``$ 22.5 was seen to vary by more than 0.2 mag. Astrometry for this candidate was achieved by the triangles fitting method using the APM (Automatic Plate Measuring machine) Sky Catalogue. Several stars close to it were identified and they served as a reference for the astrometric calibration. The optical transient was found at R.A.(2000) = 23<sup>h</sup>59<sup>m</sup>06.7<sup>s</sup>, Dec(2000) = +08 35 07<sup>′′</sup> ($`\pm `$ 1<sup>′′</sup>) (Zapatero-Osorio et al. 1998a,b), consistent with the position of the source discovered independently of us by Frail et al. (1998a).

We find that, about 22.5 h after the burst, the optical transient had R = 21.00 $`\pm `$ 0.09, H = 17.30 $`\pm `$ 0.10. The light–curves in both the R and H-bands are shown in Fig. 2. We have included the H-band data from Bloom et al. (1998b). In the R-band, the source declined in brightness following a power law, with the flux F $``$ t with $`\alpha `$ = 1.39 $`\pm `$ 0.3 ($`\chi ^2`$/dof = 0.09), a value that has been obtained when excluding the contribution of a constant source (R = 22.49 $`\pm `$ 0.04), the brightest host galaxy detected so far. We note that the low value of the chi-squared-reduced value is due to the fact that the errors in the data points have been overestimated. Regarding the near-infrared data, a pure power-law fit with index $`\alpha =1.37\pm 0.24`$ ($`\chi ^2`$/dof = 0.1) is consistent with the first four H-band measurements, once we have excluded the host galaxy contribution (H = 20.5 $`\pm `$ 0.25). These two values are consistent with $`\alpha =1.17\pm 0.25`$ reported by Bloom et al. (1998b).

The emission from X-rays to radio energies that follows the gamma-ray event is known as the afterglow. This is caused by the relativistic blast wave in which the emitted synchrotron radiation arises from relativistic electrons with high Lorentz factors $`\gamma _e`$. The electrons follow a power-law distribution N($`\gamma _e`$) $``$ $`\gamma _e^p`$ above some minimum Lorentz factor $`\gamma _m`$, i.e. for frequencies $`\nu `$ $`>`$ $`\nu _m`$, with $`\nu _m`$ being the synchrotron peak frequency, following Sari et al. (1998).

On July 4.1 UT, the equivalent spectral slope $`\beta `$ (with F<sub>ν</sub> $``$ $`\nu ^\beta `$) between the R-band and the X-rays is $`\beta _{RX}`$ = $``$0.7 $`\pm `$ 0.1, similar to the spectral indexes of other X-ray afterglows in which $`\beta _{RX}`$ $``$ $``$0.5 to $``$1.0 (Galama et al. 1998b, Halpern et al. 1998). Our near-simultaneous R- and H-band measurements on July 4.12 UT, R-H = 3.70 $`\pm `$ 0.14, implies an optical-to-near-infrared index of $`\beta _{HR}`$ $``$ $``$2.8 (or $``$ $``$3.1 excluding the contribution of the host galaxy), indicative of a reddened spectrum. Thus, the broad-band spectrum from the near-infrared to X-rays deviates from a single power-law that should have been seen once the synchrotron break has passed the optical band. Blast wave models (Sari et al. 1998 and references therein) predict much flatter optical spectra in these bands with an optical-to-near-infrared index $`\beta _{HR}`$ in the range $``$0.5 to $``$1.5. According to the dust maps of Schlegel et al. (1992), the dust column density in the direction of GRB 980703 implies E(B-V) = 0.06, i.e. A<sub>V</sub> = 0.2. This cannot explain the observed steep spectrum. We then consider the presence of extra absorption. In fact, one possibility to straighten the observed slope is by assuming intrinsic absorption. Let us determine the amount of intrinsic absorption needed in order to de-redden the spectrum to get $`\beta _{HR}`$ $``$ $``$0.6 (and $`\beta _{RX}`$ $``$ $``$1 as expected in the cooling regime), close to the observed value of $`\beta _{HR}`$ $``$ $``$0.5 in GRB 970508 (derived from Fig.2 of Palazzi et al. 1998), a burst which is considered to have had negligible absorption. Assuming a galactic extinction-law type (Savage and Mathis 1979) at the proposed host galaxy which lies at a redshift z = 0.966 (Djorgovski et al. 1998b), we find that E(B-V) $``$ 0.7 (i.e. A<sub>V</sub> = 2.2) is required, a value different than A<sub>V</sub> = 0.9 found by Bloom et al. (1998b). This corresponds to an intrinsic column density of $``$ 3.5 $`\times `$ 10<sup>21</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>.

If we assume that by the time of our first observations, the peak frequency $`\nu _m`$, has already passed the H-band, and assuming adiabatic evolution of the GRB remnant, the decay of the flux after the passage of $`\nu _m`$ would go as F<sub>ν</sub> $``$ t<sup>3(1-p)/4</sup> = t with $`\alpha `$ $``$ 1.3 as observed in the R-band (better sampled than H), giving $`p`$ = 2.7, similar to GRB 971214.

The derived intrinsic column density indicates the presence of dense medium rich in gas, surrounding the GRB. This is supported by the proposed identification of the host galaxy as a compact, star forming galaxy (Djorgovski et al. 1998b) and once more, gives strength to the “failed” supernova (Woosley 1993) or microquasar (Paczyński 1998) model scenarios. Both types of objects are thought to be found in dense, star-forming regions.

We are very grateful to J. Bloom for having provided one of the H-band images obtained at the W. M. Keck telescope. Also to J. L. Sanz, N. Benítez, T. Broadhurst and J. Silk, for lending part of their observing time. This work has been (partially) supported by Spanish CICYT grant ESP95-0389-C02-02. JG is supported by the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) GmbH under contract No. FKZ 50 QQ 9602 3.