The J-band Light Curve of SN 2003lw, Associated with GRB 031203

At z = 0.1055, the gamma-ray burst GRB 031203 is one of the two nearest GRBs known. Using observations from the Very Large Array (VLA) and Chandra X-ray Observatory we derive sub-arcsecond localizations of the radio and X-ray afterglow of this GRB. We present near-infrared observations of the supernova SN 2003lw, which exploded in the host galaxy of the GRB 031203. Our deep, high resolution Magellan/PANIC data establish that this SN is spatially coincident with the radio and X-ray localizations of the afterglow of GRB 031203 to subarcsecond precision, and is thus firmly associated with the GRB. We use image differencing to subtract the bright emission from the host galaxy, and measure the time evolution of the SN between ∼ 5 and ∼ 50 days after the GRB. The resulting light curve has a shape which is quite different from that of the two SNe previously associated with GRBs, SN 1998bw and SN 2003dh. With SN Division of Physics, Mathematics, & Astronomy, MS 105-24, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 Hubble Fellow Robert A. Millikan Fellow National Radio Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box 0, Socorro, New Mexico 87801 Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 2575 Sand Hill Road M/S 29, Menlo Park, CA 94025 Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 Las Campanas Observatory, Carnegie Observatories, Casilla 601, La Serena, Chile Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via Tiepolo, 11, I-34131 Trieste, Italy Dept. of Astronomy and RESCEU, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan *Work supported in part by the Department of Energy Contract DE-AC03-76SF00515 SLAC-PUB-10420 March 2004 astro-ph/0403608