TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 40607 SUBJECT: GRB 250601A: EP-FXT follow-up observation and afterglow candidates DATE: 25/06/02 15:46:51 GMT FROM: EP Team at NAOC/CAS ep_ta@bao.ac.cn
Q. C. Liu (THU), X. Y. Zhou (PRIC), H. L. Peng (NNU), B. B. Zhang (BNU) and Y. Liu (NAO,CAS) report on behalf of the Einstein Probe (EP) team :
We performed a follow-up observation of GRB 250601A (detected through on-broad trigger of Fermi/GBM, Fermi, GCN #40596, and localized by Swift/BAT, DeLaunay, GCN #40600; followed by Swift/XRT, Page et al., GCN #40604), with the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission. The observation began at 2025-06-02T02:10:26 (T-TGRB ~ 8.7 hrs) with an exposure time of about 5.8 ks. Two uncatalogued sources were detected by FXT-A and FXT-B in the 3-sigma Swift/BAT error circle with a radius of 493 arcsecond centered at RA, DEC = 90.0709 deg, -57.2892 deg, as listed below (the FXT flux is taken from FXT-B module). EP J060023.3-571631 has a separation of 11.6 arcsecond from the XRT source 3, and EP J060048.7-571413 has a separation of 4.8 arcsecond from the XRT source 2.
Source name | RA | DEC | Estimated Flux | SNR | Dist from Swift/BAT | | deg | deg | (erg/s/cm^2) | | offset (in arcmin) |
EP J060023.3-571631 | 90.0971 | -57.2752 | 3.2(+/-1.2) x 10^-14 | 4.1 | 1.19 | EP J060048.7-571413 * | 90.2037 | -57.2368 | 1.0(+/-0.2) x 10^-13 | 9.4 | 5.33 |
Note: * EP J060048.7-571413 was also detected by Swift/XRT (GCN #40604) in a ~4.6 ks observation conducted at T-TGRB ~ 4.8 hrs, with a flux of ~ 4e-13 erg/s/cm^2. The source thus exhibits a decreasing trend in the X-ray flux within the two epochs.
The above observation was made with the EP-FXT instrument. 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). EP is a mission of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with ESA, MPE and CNES.
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