TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 8349 SUBJECT: GRB 081008: Swift-XRT Refined Analysis DATE: 08/10/09 14:55:07 GMT FROM: Judith Racusin at PSU J. L. Racusin (PSU) reports on behalf of the Swift-XRT team: We have analyzed the first 7 orbits of XRT data for GRB 081008 (Racusin et al., GCN 8344), including 315 s of WT data and 6.9 ks of PC data. The UVOT-enhanced position was given by Evans et al. (GCN 8347). The results of the automatic analysis of the XRT data are available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products. The 0.3-10.0 keV lightcurve shows three bright flares superimposed on a steep decay, followed by a plateau with a decay index of 0.9 +/- 0.1, breaking at 16 +/- 14 ks to a decay index of 2.0 {+1.8,-0.9}. The WT spectrum, for which changes in the hardness ratio during the flares suggests spectral evolution, can be fit by an absorbed power-law, with photon index = 1.81 +/- 0.03 and NH = (6.7 +/- 0.8)e21 cm^-2 at z = 1.967 (Cucchiara et al., GCN 8346), in addition to the Galactic value of 7.1e20 cm^-2. The observed (unabsorbed) flux over this time (93-408 s after the trigger) is 3.1e-9 (3.9e-9) erg cm^-2 s^-1. The PC spectrum can be fit by an absorbed power-law, with photon index = 1.91 +/- 0.07 and NH = (5.9 {+15.1, -5.9})e20 cm^-2 at z = 1.967, consistent with the Galactic value. The observed (unabsorbed) flux over this time (412 s - 11.9 ks after the trigger) is 3.4e-11 (4.0e-11) erg cm^-2 s^-1. Assuming the X-ray emission continues to decline at the same rate, we predict a 0.3-10.0 keV XRT count rate of 3.6e-3 counts/s at T+24hr, which corresponds to an observed (unabsorbed) flux of 1.4e-13 (1.7e-13) ergs cm^-2 s^-1. This Circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.