TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 40720 SUBJECT: EP250612a: refined analysis of the EP-WXT and EP-FXT observations DATE: 25/06/13 14:07:36 GMT FROM: EP Team at NAOC/CAS ep_ta@bao.ac.cn
Y.L.Hua (PMO, CAS), J. W. Hu, T. Zhao, Y. J. Song ,W. Yuan(NAO, CAS) report on behalf of the Einstein Probe team: The fast X-ray transient EP250612a was detected by the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission (Hua et al., GCN 40700), and followed up by several optical and X-ray telescopes (Hua et al., GCN 40709, Li et al., GCN 40716). Refined analysis of the WXT data shows that the event started at T0=2025-06-12T12:27:38 (UTC) and lasted for about 35s before the interruption by the autonomous follow-up observation. The peak flux (0.5-4 keV) is estimated to be 3.9 x 10^-8 erg/s/cm^2. The averaged 0.5-4 keV spectrum can be fitted with an absorbed power-law with a Galactic hydrogen column density of 4.3 x 10^21 cm^-2(-2.1, +2.4) and a photon index of 1.01 (-0.1, +0.1). The derived average unabsorbed 0.5-4 keV flux is 3.67 (-0.74, +1.10) x 10^-9 erg/s/cm^2. The Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) on board EP observed this source autonomously at 2025-06-12 12:30:08, about 3 minutes after T0, with an exposure time of 5858 seconds. Within the WXT error circle, on-ground analysis of the FXT data found an uncatalogued source at R.A. = 229.6534, DEC = -26.7673 (J2000) with an uncertainty of 10 arcsec (radius, 90% C.L. statistical and systematic), which is spatially consistent with the candidate X-ray counterpart detected by Fermi(Fermi GBM team., GCN 40702). The averaged 0.5-10 keV FXT spectrum can be fitted with an absorbed power-law with a Galactic hydrogen column density of 1.49 x 10^21 cm^-2 and a photon index of 2.2 (-0.045, +0.045). The derived unabsorbed 0.5-10 keV flux is 1.37 (-0.03, +0.04) x 10^-11 erg/s/cm^2. The uncertainties are at the 90% confidence level for all the above parameters. EP-FXT will continue monitoring the source in the forthcoming days. Multi-band follow-up observations are encouraged. The contact TA of EP250612a is Y.L.Hua, please contact him via the email ylhua@pmo.ac.cn if needed. Launched on January 9, 2024, EP is a space X-ray observatory to monitor the soft X-ray sky with X-ray follow-up capability (Yuan et al. 2022, Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics).
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