TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 36362 SUBJECT: MeerKAT Discovery of a Probable Radio Counterpart to EP240414a DATE: 24/05/01 15:17:35 GMT FROM: Joe Bright at U of Oxford joe.bright@physics.ox.ac.uk
J. Bright, F. Carotenuto (Oxford), P. G. Jonker (Radboud), R. Fender, S. Smartt (Oxford)
We observed the field of the Einstein Probe discovered Fast X-ray Transient EP240414a (GCN 36091) with the MeerKAT radio telescope between UTC 20:19:25 and 21:21:48 on 23 April 2024 (including calibration time) using the S-band receiver (S4) at a central frequency of ~3 GHz. J1939-6342 and J1239-1023 were used as flux and complex gain calibrators, respectively. Using the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory Science Data Pipeline image, we detect enhanced radio emission at the position of the transient with a peak flux density of ~2.5 mJy/beam. We note that there is significant emission from the likely host galaxy of EP240414a peaking at ~1.5 mJy/beam but separated by ~4 arcseconds from the position of EP240414a. With a restoring beam of ~5 x 4 arcseconds we significantly resolve these components, but there is likely some minor contribution from the host galaxy to the measured transient emission.
Further observations with MeerKAT are planned to confirm radio variability from the source.
We thank the staff at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory for the rapid scheduling of these observations. The MeerKAT telescope is operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation. This work has made use of the “MPIfR S-band receiver system” designed, constructed and maintained by funding of the MPI für Radioastronomy and the Max-Planck-Society.
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