EP260601a — All Circulars

A. P. C. van Hoof (Radboud), J. Sanchez-Sierras (Radboud), P. G. Jonker (Radboud), G. Corcoran (UCD), A. J. Levan (Radboud and Warwick), D. B. Malesani (DAWN/NBI and Radboud), A. Martin-Carrillo (UCD), report on behalf of a larger collaboration:

We observed the likely host galaxy of EP260601a/GRB 260601B (Yang et al., GCN 44766; Yu et al., GCN 44767; Wang et al., GCN 44768; Waratkar et al., GCN 44771; Sugita et al., GCN 44773) that is at the position of the optical counterpart (Liu et al., GCN 44764; Guelfand et al., GCN 44765; Li et al. GCN 44769) using the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) equipped with the X-shooter spectrograph. The spectrum covers the wavelength range of 3000 - 24000 AA with total exposure times of 2910, 2980 and 3000 s in the UVB, VIS and NIR arms, respectively. The observation started on 2026-06-11 at 07:39:12 UT, i.e. ~10 days after the event.

We detect clear emission lines in the spectrum, which we identify as the [O II] 3726, 3729 doublet (resolved), H-gamma, and [O III] 5008 at a redshift of z = 1.068. We suggest that this is the redshift of the host galaxy of EP260601a.

We thank the ESO staff at Paranal for their excellent support, in particular Celia Desgrange, Claudia Paladini, Francisco Caceres, and John Pritchard.

G. J. Yang (NAO, CAS), Z. X. Li, G. L. Huang, J. Y. Cao (IHEP, CAS), Y. Wang (PMO, CAS; UCB), W. D. Zhang (NAO, CAS) on behalf of the Einstein Probe (EP) team:

EP-FXT performed a follow-up observation of the fast X-ray transient EP260601a (detected by EP-WXT, GCN 44766; followed by Liu et al., GCN 44764, Guelfand et al., GCN 44765, Li et al., GCN 44769, Mo et al., GCN 44777 and Liu et al., GCN 44789). This event is also temporally consistent with GRB 260601B reported by GECAM-B (Yu et al., GCN 44767, Wang et al., GCN 44768), NuSTAR (Waratkar et al., GCN 44771), CALET (Sugita et al., GCN 44773) and Insight-HXMT (Wang et al., GCN 44785). 
The observation started at 2026-06-03 01:13:47 UTC, about 30 hours after the WXT trigger, with an exposure time of 3.5 ks. The FXT telemetry data show that an uncatalogued source was detected within the WXT error circle at R.A. = 257.6584, DEC = -1.6447 (J2000) with an uncertainty of 10 arcsec (radius, 90% C.L. statistical and systematic). The FXT X-ray spectrum can be fitted with an absorbed power law with a fixed Galactic hydrogen column density of 9 x 10^20 cm^-2. The best-fit photon index is 1.31 (-0.28/+0.29). The unabsorbed 0.5-10 keV flux is 9.2 (-2.2/+3.2) x 10^-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1.

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).

G. J. Yang (NAO, CAS), Z. X. Li, G. L. Huang, J. Y. Cao (IHEP, CAS), Y. Wang (PMO, CAS; UCB), W. D. Zhang (NAO, CAS) on behalf of the Einstein Probe (EP) team:

We report on the detection of an X-ray transient by the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission, designated EP260601a. The transient triggered EP-WXT (ID: 01709266307) at 2026-06-01T19:13:22 UTC. The WXT position of the source is R.A. = 257.649 deg, Dec = -1.647 deg (J2000) with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin in radius (90% C.L. statistical and systematic). The preliminary analysis of the WXT data shows that the burst started at T_0 = 2026-06-01T19:12:41 UTC. The light curve shows an initial flare lasting approximately 100 s, followed by tail emission. During the flare, the unabsorbed 0.5-4 keV flux was 5.2 (-1.7/+3.6) x 10^-08 erg cm^-2 s^-1. 

The time-averaged WXT 0.5-4 keV spectrum over the entire detected emission can be described by an absorbed power law, with the hydrogen column density left as a free parameter. The best-fit hydrogen column density is 6.7 (-1.5/+1.6) x 10^21 cm^-2. The best-fit photon index is 1.2 (-0.3/+0.3). The unabsorbed 0.5-4 keV flux is 2.4 (-0.2/+0.3) x 10^-10 erg cm^-2 s^-1.

A follow-up observation with the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) onboard EP is 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).

Marion Guelfand (CPPM), Camila Angulo (UNAM), Jean-Grégoire Ducoin (CPPM), Stéphane Basa (UAR Pytheas), William H. Lee (UNAM), Alan M. Watson (UNAM), Edilberto Aguilar-Ruiz (UNAM), Jean-Luc Atteia (IRAP), Dalya Akl (NYUAD), Sarah Antier (IJCLAB), Rosa L. Becerra (UNAM), Nathaniel R. Butler (ASU), Damien Dornic (CPPM),  Francis Fortin (IRAP), Leonardo García García (UNAM), Ramandeep Gill (UNAM), Noémie Globus (UNAM), Asuka Kuwata (UNAM), Massimiliano Lincetto (CPPM), Nikos Mandarakas (LAM), Diego López-Cámara (UNAM), Francesco Magnani (CPPM), Enrique Moreno Méndez (UNAM), Margarita Pereyra (UNAM), Ny Avo Rakotondrainibe (LAM), Fredd Sánchez Álvarez (UNAM), Benjamin Schneider (LAM) and Antonio de Ugarte Postigo (LAM)  report:

We observed the field of the EP-WXT Trigger 01709266307 (EP260601a) with the DDRAGO two-channel wide-field imager mounted on the COLIBRÍ telescope. We observed from 2026-06-02 08:36 UTC to 09:00 UTC (from 13.38 to 13.39 hours after the trigger) and obtained 20 minutes of simultaneous exposure in the r and  z filters, respectively.

The data were reduced and coadded with the COLIBRI pipeline and analysed with STDWeb/STDPipe (Karpov 2025). The photometry was calibrated using nearby stars from the Pan-STARRS-DR2 catalog, is in the AB system, and is not corrected for Galactic extinction.

We detected the optical counterpart reported by Liu et al., GCN Circ. 44764. 
The preliminary magnitude derived for that source is:

r = 21.93 +/- 0.15 
z = 21.07 +/- 0.12

The source is fading between the two observations.

Further observations are ongoing.


We thank the staff of the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional at Sierra de San Pedro Mártir, as well as the technical and engineering teams at CEA, CPPM, IRAP, LAM, OHP, OSU Pytheas, and UNAM.

COLIBRÍ is an astronomical observatory developed and operated jointly by France (AMU, CNES and CNRS) and Mexico (UNAM and SECIHTI). It is located at the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional on the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir, Baja California, Mexico.

X. Liu, Z.P. Zhu, D. Xu, J. An, S.Q. Jiang, L.B. He (NAOC), S.Y. Fu, A.D. Zhu, L. Lei (HUST), J.Z. Liu (XAO) report:

We observed the field of EP-WXT Trigger 01709266307 (EP260601a) detected by Einstein Probe (EP), using the JinShan 100B telescope located at Altay, Xinjiang, China. A series of r-band frames were obtained. 

An uncatalogued and decaying source is detected within the EP/WXT error circle at coordinates

R.A. (J2000) = 17:10:38.24
Dec. (J2000) = -01:38:42.4

with an uncertainty of ~ 1.0 arcsec. The source had r ~ 18.4 mag at a median time of ~ 0.73 hr post-trigger, calibrated with Pan-STARRS DR2 and not corrected for Galactic extinction of A_V ~ 1.15 mag. We thus think the source is the optical counterpart of EP260601a.

We also note the presence of a faint source with g ~ 25.2 mag in the Legacy Survey DR10 image at the above position, which could be the host of EP260601a.

We acknowledge the excellent support from T.Q. Chen, and J.F. Zhang for enabling these observations.