Optical and Near‐infrared Observations of the Afterglow of GRB 980329 from 15 Hours to 10 Days

We report I -band observations of the GRB 980329 field made on 1998 March 29 with the 1.34 m Tautenberg Schmidt telescope, R -, J - and K -band observations made on 1998 April 1 with the APO 3.5 m telescope, R - and I -band observations made on 1998 April 3 with the Mayall 4 m telescope at KPNO, and J - and K -band observations made 1998 April 6-8 with the Keck-I 10 m telescope. We show that these and other reported measurements are consistent with a power-law fading of the optical/near-infrared source that is coincident with the variable radio source VLA J0702+3850. This firmly establishes that this source is the afterglow of GRB 980329.