GCN Circular 45047

J.P. Chen (SYSU), K. J. Zhang, D. Zhu (YNU), W. D. Zhang (NAO, CAS) on behalf of the Einstein Probe (EP) team:

We report on the detection of a fast X-ray transient, designated EP260626a, by the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission. The transient was identified in the telemetry data. The transient was detected in the WXT observation starting at 2026-06-26T05:25:04 (UTC). A significant flare was detected in the source light curve, which started before the beginning of the observation and ended approximately 100 seconds after the start of the observation. The position of the transient is R.A. = 277.4417 deg, Dec. = 21.2403 deg (J2000), with an uncertainty radius of 2.7 arcmin in radius (90% confidence level, including both statistical and systematic uncertainties). There are no known X-ray sources in the WXT error circle.

The average WXT 0.5-4 keV spectrum can be fitted by an absorbed power-law model with a fixed Galactic hydrogen column density of 2.04×10^21 cm^-2 and a photon index of 1.93 (-0.4/+0.42). The derived average unabsorbed 0.5-4 keV flux is 8.02 (-1.7/+2.1) x 10^(-11) erg cm^-2 s^-1. The uncertainties are at the 90% confidence level for the above parameters.
Follow-up observations by EP-FXT will be arranged.

Launched on 2024 January 9, Einstein Probe is a space-based X-ray observatory designed to monitor the dynamic X-ray sky and perform rapid follow-up observations of newly discovered transients (Yuan et al. 2022, Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics).