Authors
An Li, Chen-Wei Wang, Niccolò Passaleva, Jie An, Bin-Bin Zhang, Eleonora Troja, Yi-Han Iris Yin, Yuan Liu, Shao-Lin Xiong, Li-Ping Xin, Yi-Xuan Shao, Jun Yang, Hui Sun, Dong Xu, Yu-Han Yang, Roberto Ricci, He Gao, Sarah Antier, Rosa L Becerra, Jia-Xin Cao, Alberto Javier Castro-Tirado, Xin-Lei Chen, Ye-Hao Cheng, Yong Chen, Hua-Qing Cheng, Valerio D'Elia, Massimiliano De Pasquale, Yong-Wei Dong, Eslam Elhosseiny, Rob A J Eyles-Ferris, Maria Gritsevich, Xu-Hui Han, Dieter Hartmann, You-Dong Hu, Jing-Wei Hu, Shu-Mei Jia, Nino Kochiashvili, Wei-Hua Lei, Andrew J Levan, Cheng-Kui Li, Dong-Yue Li, Hua-Li Li, Xiao-Bo Li, Zhi-Xing Ling, He-Yang Liu, Hou-Jun Lü, Daniele B Malesani, Brendan O'Connor, Hai-Wu Pan, Shashi Bhushan Pandey, Ignacio Perez-Garcia, Daniëlle L A Pieterse, Marion Pillas, Yu-Lei Qiu, Andrea Saccardi, Rubén Sánchez-Ramírez, Wen-Jun Tan, Manasanun Tanasan, Nial R Tanvir, Susanna D Vergani, Jing Wang, Xiao-Feng Wang, Qin-Yu Wu, Shu-Xu Yi, Tillayev Yusufjon, Chen Zhang, Wen-Da Zhang, Yi-Jia Zhang, Guo-Ying Zhao, Chao Zheng, Shi-Jie Zheng, Chang Zhou, Ping Zhou, Bertrand Cordier, Jian-Yan Wei, Weimin Yuan, Shuang-Nan Zhang, Bing Zhang
Published in
Science bulletin. Aug 10, 2026. Epub Aug 10, 2026.
Abstract
Compact object mergers are multi-messenger sources and known progenitors of some gamma-ray bursts, bright flashes of high-energy radiation powered by a central engine, either an accreting black hole or a neutron star. Our understanding of these events has so far been shaped primarily by observations in the gamma-ray band, leaving their prompt phase poorly constrained at lower energies. A long-lasting (≈100 s) engine-driven X-ray emission was discussed to explain rapidly fading X-ray afterglows following several (≈30%) bursts of short (≲2 s) duration. However, this prompt X-ray component was not directly observed and past candidates were not confirmed. Here we report the discovery of EP250704a containing a minutes-long (∼560 s) flash of soft (0.5-4 keV) X-rays immediately following the short (∼0.4 s) GRB 250704B. The variability and spectral shape of this emission are inconsistent with the canonical picture of a hard, accretion-powered spike followed by a standard external-shock afterglow. Instead, the long-soft bump points to a distinct phase of prompt emission in X-rays, which would not have been detected without the soft X-ray coverage of Einstein Probe. The detection of a prompt soft X-ray counterpart in an otherwise ordinary short GRB shows that long-lasting X-ray emission is likely a common feature of merger-driven bursts and a promising electromagnetic counterpart to gravitational wave sources.
PMID:
42629298
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 22 Aug 2026.
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