GCN 43845: EP260214a: VLA 6 GHz detection

R. Ricci, M. Yadav, Y.-H. Yang, N. Passaleva and E. Troja (U Rome) report:

We observed the Einstein Probe event EP260214a detected by EP/WXT (A. Li et al. GCN 43742) with Very Large Array in C-band at the centre frequency of 6 GHz with a bandwidth of 4 GHz on Feb 21st 2026, 6.6 days after the trigger. 

Within the EP/FXT error circle (A. Li et al., GCN 43751) we detect a possible radio counterpart at RA, Dec (J2000) = 13:24:55.401, -29:02:32.97 with a flux density of about 60 uJy. 

No source is visible at this position in our deep VLT/HAWKI image (N. Passaleva et al. GCN 43756).  However, we note that the candidate counterpart lies 8.8” away from a bright galaxy (r=19.62 AB mag), corresponding to a chance alignment of Pcc~4% (Bloom et al. 2002). Assuming a photometric redshift of z=0.18±0.15 (PRLS, Zhou et al. 2021), this corresponds to a projected physical offset of 27 (+15, -22) kpc. 

Further observations to assess the variability of the candidate radio counterpart are planned.

We thank the VLA staff for executing the observations