TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  37814
SUBJECT: GRB 241018A: X-ray afterglow candidate observed by MXT
DATE:    24/10/18 16:00:16 GMT
FROM:    Damien Turpin at CEA-Saclay <dturpin-astro@hotmail.com>

P. Maggi, L. Michel (ObAS), F. Robinet, N. Leroy (IJCLab), A. Fort, J. Joubert, K. Mercier, S. Crepaldi (CNES), P. Ferrando, D. Götz, A. Meuris, M. Moita, C. Plasse, A. Sauvageon (CEA)

SVOM JSWG: Jian-Yan Wei (NAOC), Bertrand Cordier (CEA), Shuang-Nan Zhang (IHEP), Stéphane Basa (LAM), Olivier Godet (IRAP), Arnaud Claret (CEA), Zi-Gao Dai (USTC), Frédéric Daigne (IAP), Jin-Song Deng (NAOC), Andrea Goldwurm (APC), Diego Götz (CEA), Xu-Hui Han (NAOC), Cyril Lachaud (APC), En-Wei Liang (GXU), Yu-Lei Qiu (NAOC), Susanna Vergani (Obs.Paris), Jing Wang (NAOC), Chao Wu (NAOC), Li-Ping Xin (NAOC),  Shaolin Xiong (IHEP), Bing Zhang (UNLV)
Report on behalf of the SVOM team:

MXT started to observe the field of GRB 241018A (Atteia et al., GCN 37812) at 11:58:18 UT in an automatic way after ECLAIRs detection and slew of the satellite.

The following trigger information was received on the ground using X-band data

A source is detected at RA= 67.9693 Dec = 42.997  with a 90% c.l. error of 41.7 arcsec before VT bias correction to which we recommend adding 1.5 arcminutes of systematic uncertainty in quadrature. The light curve looks flat on 1900 s and the spectrum is hard with photon index = 0.85 +/- 0.1, at low absorption (NH < 1e20 cm-2). Further results will be given once the full telemetry is received and analyzed.

Observations by other telescopes are encouraged.

The Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) is a China-France joint mission led by the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA), French Space Agency (CNES), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which is dedicated to observing gamma-ray bursts and other transient phenomena in the energetic universe. MXT was developed jointly by CEA, CNES, University of Leicester, IJCLab and MPE.