Gas absorption of soft X-rays strongly impacts the redshift distribution of dark Fast X-ray Transients

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ID: 329019
2026
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Abstract
Abstract The progenitors of many Fast X-ray Transients (FXTs) and those of γ-ray bursts (GRBs) are strongly linked. Given that ”dark” GRBs are typically found to be events suffering from enhanced extinction in the host galaxy, we investigate the nature of ”dark” FXTs. However, unlike γ-rays, soft X-rays are strongly affected by absorption, implying that dark FXTs discovered by Einstein Probe’s Wide-field X-ray Telescope (EP-WXT) have to be emitted at energies >2–3 keV restframe hence at a redshift z ≳ 2. To illustrate this we present two dark FXTs, EP241103a and EP260409a, discovered by EP-WXT. For EP241103a, the high extinction precluded the detection of the optical counterpart, while for a probable source redshift of ≈2.5, the rest-frame X-ray photons are not severely affected. For EP260409a no counterpart is detected in the optical, but we do detect a near-infrared counterpart. A plausible scenario for EP260409a is that it lies at a redshift z ≳ 4. Additionally, we conduct simulations of FXTs observed with EP-WXT, showing that the detected counts for absorbed events (NH ≳ 1022 cm−2) strongly decrease at low redshifts, hindering their detection. These results support the theoretical prediction that dark FXTs have an intermediate to high redshift and a different selection function from those of dark GRBs.
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Authors J. Sánchez-Sierras, Peter G Jonker, Jonathan Quirola-Vásquez, Agnes van Hoof, Andrew J Levan, M. E. Ravasio, Joyce N D van Dalen, Franz E Bauer, Jia-Ying Cao, Francesco Carotenuto, J. Chacon, A A Chrimes, Laura Cotter, Gregory Corcoran, R. A. J. Eyles-Ferris, Guoli Huang, Shuai-Qing Jiang, Zexi Li, Yifang Liang, He-Yang Liu, Daniele B Malesani, Antonio Martin-Carrillo, D. Mata Sánchez, Nikhil Sarin, Manuel A P Torres, Qinyu Wu, Tong Zhao, Wen-Da Zhang
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Journal monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stag1743
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1743
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