GCN Circular 44786
Subject
EP260602b: Einstein Probe detection of a fast X-ray transient
Event
Date
2026-06-03T06:14:44Z (3 days ago)
From
EP Team at NAOC/CAS <ep_ta@bao.ac.cn>
Via
Web form
J. W. Hu (NAO, CAS), Z. X. Li, G. L. Huang, J. Y. Cao (IHEP, CAS), Y. Liu (NAO, CAS) on behalf of the Einstein Probe (EP) team:
We report on the detection of a fast X-ray transient by the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission, designated EP260602b. The transient triggered EP-WXT (ID: 01709266414) at 2026-06-02T17:54:02 (UTC). The WXT position of the source is R.A. = 273.487 deg, DEC = 7.595 deg (J2000) with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin in radius (90% C.L. statistical and systematic).
The refined analysis of the WXT data shows that the event was detected at R.A. = 273.483 deg, DEC = 7.579 deg (J2000) with an uncertainty of 2.6 arcmin in radius. The event started at T0=2026-06-02T17:53:12 (UTC), and lasted for about 60 s. The average WXT 0.5-4 keV spectrum can be fitted with an absorbed power law with a fixed Galactic hydrogen column density of 1.9 × 10^21 cm^-2, and a photon index of 1.36 (-0.80, +0.87). The derived average unabsorbed 0.5-4 keV flux is 1.8 (-0.6, +0.7)×10^(-9) erg/s/cm^2.
The optical counterpart of EP260602b was reported by He et al. (GCN 44780).
No autonomous follow-up observation with Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) was performed. A Target-of-Opportunity observation with the FXT has been scheduled. Further information will be updated when the telemetry data is received.
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).