TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 30416 SUBJECT: GRB 210708A: Swift-XRT refined Analysis DATE: 21/07/08 10:42:33 GMT FROM: Phil Evans at U of Leicester D.N. Burrows (PSU), P.A. Evans (U. Leicester), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), K.L. Page (U. Leicester), T. Sbarrato (INAF-OAB), P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), M.G. Bernardini (INAF-OAB), J. D. Gropp (PSU) and B. Sbarufatti report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team: We have analysed 6.8 ks of XRT data for GRB 210708A (Sbarufatti et al. GCN Circ. 30413), from 85 s to 22.8 ks after the BAT trigger. The data are entirely in Photon Counting (PC) mode. The refined XRT position is RA, Dec = 173.7372, -49.1515 which is equivalent to: RA (J2000): 11 34 56.92 Dec(J2000): -49 09 05.4 with an uncertainty of 7.0 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence). The light curve can be modelled with a power-law decay with a decay index of alpha=1.76 (+0.30, -0.65). A spectrum formed from the PC mode data can be fitted with an absorbed power-law with a photon spectral index of 2.5 (+0.4, -0.3). The best-fitting absorption column is 3.0 (+1.2, -1.0) x 10^21 cm^-2, in excess of the Galactic value of 1.6 x 10^21 cm^-2 (Willingale et al. 2013). The counts to observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux conversion factor deduced from this spectrum is 3.0 x 10^-11 (5.8 x 10^-11) erg cm^-2 count^-1. A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus: Total column: 3.0 (+1.2, -1.0) x 10^21 cm^-2 Galactic foreground: 1.6 x 10^21 cm^-2 Excess significance: 2.2 sigma Photon index: 2.5 (+0.4, -0.3) If the light curve continues to decay with a power-law decay index of 1.76, the count rate at T+24 hours will be 8.8 x 10^-6 count s^-1, corresponding to an observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux of 2.6 x 10^-16 (5.1 x 10^-16) erg cm^-2 s^-1. The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/01059460. This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.