THE FIRST SWIFT ULTRAVIOLET/OPTICAL TELESCOPE GRB AFTERGLOW CATALOG

We present the first Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow catalog. The catalog contains data from over 64,000 independent UVOT image observations of 229 GRBs first detected by Swift, the High Energy Transient Explorer 2 (HETE2), the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), and the Interplanetary Network (IPN). The catalog covers GRBs occurring during the period from 2005 January 17 to 2007 June 16 and includes similar to 86% of the bursts detected by the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT). The catalog provides detailed burst positional, temporal, and photometric information extracted from each of the UVOT images. Positions for bursts detected at the 3 sigma level are provided with a nominal accuracy, relative to the USNO-B1 catalog, of similar to 0 ''.25. Photometry for each burst is given in three UV bands, three optical bands, and a white or open filter. Upper limits for magnitudes are reported for sources detected below 3s. General properties of the burst sample and light curves, including the filter-dependent temporal slopes, are also provided. The majority of the UVOT light curves, for bursts detected at the 3 sigma level, can be fit by a single power-law, with a median temporal slope (alpha) of 0.96, beginning several hundred seconds after the burst trigger and ending at similar to 1 x 10(5) s. The median UVOT nu-band (similar to 5500 angstrom )magnitude at 2000 s for a sample of well-detected bursts is 18.02. The UVOT flux interpolated to 2000 s after the burst, shows relatively strong correlations with both the prompt Swift BAT fluence, and the Swift X-ray flux at 11 hr after the trigger.