TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 23945 SUBJECT: GRB 190305A: Swift-XRT afterglow detection DATE: 19/03/11 13:16:34 GMT FROM: Antonino D'Ai at IASF-PA A. D'Ai (INAF-IASFPA), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB), J.A. Kennea (PSU), B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU), D.N. Burrows (PSU), A.P. Beardmore (U. Leicester), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB) and P.A. Evans (U. Leicester) report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team: Swift-XRT has conducted further observations of the field of the AGILE and MAXI detected burst GRB 190305A (Ursi et al. GCN Circ. 23930, Nakahira et al. GCN Circ.23933). The observations now extend from T0+32.7 ks to T0+143 ks. Of the sources reported by D'Ai et al. (GCN Circ. 23935), "Source 1" is fading with 3-sigma significance, and is therefore likely the GRB afterglow. Using 668 s of PC mode data and 2 UVOT images, we find an enhanced XRT position (using the XRT-UVOT alignment and matching UVOT field sources to the USNO-B1 catalogue): RA, Dec = 11.62657, -50.34865 which is equivalent to: RA (J2000): 00h 46m 30.38s Dec(J2000): -50d 20' 55.1" with an uncertainty of 2.5 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence). This position is 17.8 arcmin from the MAXI position. A spectrum formed from the PC mode data can be fitted with an absorbed power-law with a photon spectral index of 1.6 (+0.7, -0.6). The best-fitting absorption column is 3.7 (+4.3, -2.9) x 10^21 cm^-2, in excess of the Galactic value of 2.3 x 10^20 cm^-2 (Willingale et al. 2013). The counts to observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux conversion factor deduced from this spectrum is 5.1 x 10^-11 (6.5 x 10^-11) erg cm^-2 count^-1. A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus: Total column: 3.7 (+4.3, -2.9) x 10^21 cm^-2 Galactic foreground: 2.3 x 10^20 cm^-2 Excess significance: 2.0 sigma Photon index: 1.6 (+0.7, -0.6) The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/00020869. The results of the full analysis of the tiled XRT observations are available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/TILED_GRB00077. This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.