X-ray sources near soft gamma repeater in M31

Its error quadrilateral, which has an area of 0.124deg^2^, intersects some prominent spiral arms of the nearby M31 (Andromeda) galaxy. Given the properties of this GRB, along with the fact that LIGO data argue against a compact binary merger origin in M31, it is an excellent candidate to have been an extragalactic soft gamma-ray repeater (SGR) giant flare, with an energy of 1.4x1045ergs.

However, we cannot rule out the possibility that it was a short-duration GRB in the background. Analysis of ROTSE-IIIb visible-light observations of M31, taken 10.6hr after the burst and covering 42% of the GRB error region, does not reveal any optical transient down to a limiting magnitude of 17.1. We inspected archival and proprietary XMM-Newton X-ray observations of the intersection of the GRB error region and M31, obtained about 4 weeks prior to the outburst, in order to look for periodic variable X-ray sources.