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EP-WXT detection of the new XTE J1946+274 outburst

ATel #16723; S. Q. Jiang, W. Chen(NAOC, CAS), J. Q. Peng(IHEP, CAS), W. D. Zhang, D. Y. Li, W. Yuan, C. C. Jin, Z. X. Ling, Y. Liu, C. Zhang, H. Q. Cheng, C. Z. Cui, D. W. Fan, H. B. Hu, J. W. Hu, M. H. Huang, H. Y. Liu, M. J. Liu, Z. Z. Lv, T. Y. Lian, X. Mao, H. W. Pan, X. Pan, H. Sun, W. X. Wang, Y. L. Wang, S. X. Wen, Q. Y. Wu, X. P. Xu, Y. F. Xu, H. N. Yang, M. Zhang, W. J. Zhang, Z. Zhang, D. H. Zhao (NAOC, CAS), Y. Chen, S. M. Jia, S. N. Zhang (IHEP, CAS), E. Kuulkers, A. Santovincenzo (ESA), P. O'Brien (Univ. of Leicester), K. Nandra, A. Rau (MPE), B. Cordier (CEA) on behalf of the Einstein Probe team.
on 20 Jul 2024; 07:01 UT
Credential Certification: Yuan Liu (liuyuan@bao.ac.cn)

Subjects: X-ray, Binary, Neutron Star, Pulsar

Referred to by ATel #: 16744, 16766

We report on the detection of the new outburst of XTE J1946+274 by the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission. The onset of the outburst was detected by MAXI (ATel #16717), which found a brightening since 2024-07-14. The outburst was also likely detected by SVOM/ECLAIRs (ATel #16719). EP-WXT detected the source firstly in the observation starting at 2024-07-11T16:30:39 and subsequently in several other observations. Detailed spectral analysis of the WXT observations shows the absorbed 0.5-4 keV flux of the source to be increasing with time, from 1.12(+0.71/-0.46)x10^-11 erg/s/cm2 on 2024-07-11 to 1.14(+0.29/-0.25)x10^-10 erg/s/cm2 in the lastest observation taken on 2024-07-18. The WXT energy spectra are fitted by an absorbed powerlaw, with a photon index of ~0-0.6 (with large uncertainties) and a neutral hydrogen column density fixed at 1.0x10^22 cm^-2 (Chandra et al. 2023).

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). EP is a mission of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with ESA, MPE and CNES.