GCN Circular 40257

Y.Wang (PMO, CAS), D. Y. Li (NAO, CAS), Y. Q. Zhao (USTC, PRIC), J. H. Wu (GZHU), Y, Liu (NAO, CAS) 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 EP250427a (GCN Notice ID 01709135324).  The WXT position of the source is R.A. = 277.281 deg, DEC = 7.570 deg (J2000) with an uncertainty of 2.0 arcmin in radius (90% C.L. statistical and systematic). 
A preliminary analysis of the EP-WXT data shows that the transient began at 2025-04-27T03:38:45(UTC) (before which the satellite was in the SAA region, and the real start time might be earlier than the value reported here) and lasted for about 180s, with a peak flux of 2 x 10^-8 erg/cm^2/s. The averaged WXT spectrum can be fitted by an absorbed power law model with a photon index of 1.70 (+0.36, -0.34) and a column density of 3.92 (+0.14, -0.13) x 10^21 cm^-2. The unabsorbed 0.5-4 keV flux is about 1.96 (+0.31, -0.23) x 10^-9 erg/cm^2/s.

A follow-up observation with the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) was performed about 5 hours after the WXT detection. Within the WXT error circle, an uncatalogued X-ray source was detected at R.A. = 277.2746 deg, DEC = 7.5639 deg (J2000) with an uncertainty of 20 arcsec in radius (90% C.L. statistical and systematic). Further information will be updated when the telemetry data is received.

The contact TA of EP250427a is Y. Wang. Please contact him via email wangyun@pmo.ac.cn if needed.

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).