TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 16550 SUBJECT: GRB 140709A: Swift-XRT refined Analysis DATE: 14/07/09 15:28:03 GMT FROM: Phil Evans at U of Leicester V. D'Elia (ASDC), M. de Pasquale (INAF-IASFPA), V. Mangano (PSU), M.C. Stroh (PSU), D.N. Burrows (PSU), P.A. Evans (U. Leicester), B.P. Gompertz (U. Leicester), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), A. Maselli (INAF-IASFPA) and L.M.Z. Hagen report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team: We have analysed 7.1 ks of XRT data for GRB 140709A (Hagen et al. GCN Circ. 16546), from 75 s to 30.7 ks after the BAT trigger. The data comprise 195 s in Windowed Timing (WT) mode (the first 6 s were taken while Swift was slewing) with the remainder in Photon Counting (PC) mode. The late-time light curve (from T0+5.7 ks) can be modelled with a power-law decay with a decay index of alpha=0.89 (+0.08, -0.09). A spectrum formed from the WT mode data can be fitted with an absorbed power-law with a photon spectral index of 2.48 (+/-0.07). The best-fitting absorption column is 9.9 (+/-0.5) x 10^21 cm^-2, in excess of the Galactic value of 4.1 x 10^21 cm^-2 (Willingale et al. 2013). The PC mode spectrum has a photon index of 1.88 (+/-0.14) and a best-fitting absorption column of 8.0 (+1.2, -1.1) x 10^21 cm^-2. The counts to observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux conversion factor deduced from this spectrum is 4.9 x 10^-11 (8.0 x 10^-11) erg cm^-2 count^-1. A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus: Total column: 8.0 (+1.2, -1.1) x 10^21 cm^-2 Galactic foreground: 4.1 x 10^21 cm^-2 Excess significance: 5.8 sigma Photon index: 1.88 (+/-0.14) If the light curve continues to decay with a power-law decay index of 0.89, the count rate at T+24 hours will be 0.038 count s^-1, corresponding to an observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux of 1.9 x 10^-12 (3.1 x 10^-12) erg cm^-2 s^-1. The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/00603810. This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.