TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 39491 SUBJECT: GRB 250221A: EP-FXT detection of the X-ray afterglow DATE: 25/02/26 12:12:31 GMT FROM: Rosa L. Becerra at Tor Vergata, Roma rosa.becerra@roma2.infn.it

E. Troja (U Rome), R. L. Becerra (U Rome), W. J. Zhang, T. Y. Lian, H. W. Pan (NAO, CAS), Y. Wang (PMO, CAS), and Y. -H. Yang (U Rome) report:

We performed a follow-up observation of GRB 250221A detected by Swift/BAT (Caputo et al., GCN 39396) with the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission. The observation began at 2025-02-23 05:16:58 (UTC), about ~ 2.1 days after the trigger, for a total exposure time of 5.2 ks.

At the position of the XRT counterpart (Beardmore et al., GCN 39404), an uncatalogued X-ray source is detected by both FXT-A and FXT-B. This position is also consistent with the optical (Watson et al., GCN 39397; Cotter et al., GCN 39413; Muenter et al., GCN 39417; Shilling et al. GCN 39409; Kumar et al. GCN 39412; Pozanenko et al., GCN 39422; Ghosh et al., GCN 39425; Iskandar et al., GCN 39446) and radio afterglow (Ricci et al., GCN 39433).

From a preliminary analysis we derive an observed flux of (1.7 +/- 0.2)*10^-13 erg/cm^2/s (0.3-10.0 keV), consistent with the latest Swift/XRT measurement (Salvaggio et al., GCN 39414) and indicative of a possible rebrightening (Pankov et al., GCN 39427).

Further observations are planned.

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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