TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 13699 SUBJECT: GRB 120821A: Swift/XRT observations DATE: 12/08/22 12:05:46 GMT FROM: Paolo D'Avanzo at INAF-OAB P. D'Avanzo, A. Melandri, S. Campana (INAF-OAB) report on behalf of the Swift team: The Swift XRT observed the error circle of the INTEGRAL-detected GRB 120821A (Mereghetti et al, GCN Circ. 13696) from 15.2 to 17.2 ks after the trigger. The data comprise 2.0 ks of Photon Counting (PC) mode data. No clear afterglow candidate is detected. We note however the presence of a very faint and low-significance source within the INTEGRAL error circle (Mereghetti et al, GCN Circ. 13696) at the following position: RA, Dec =255.25762, -40.51365 which is equivalent to: RA (J2000): 17h 01m 01.83s Dec (J2000): -40d 30' 49.1" with an uncertainty of 6.7 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence). The source has a count rate of (4.5 +/- 2.1) x 10^-3 cts/s. This corresponds to an observed 0.3-10 keV flux of (2.7 +/- 1.2) x 10^-13 erg/cm2/s (assuming a typical GRB spectrum with photon spectral index of 2). If we consider the Galactic absorption in this direction (1.1 x 10^22 cm^-2; Kalberla et al. 2005) this corresponds to an unabsorbed flux of (5.5 +/- 2.5) x 10^-12 erg/cm2/s. Given the limited statistics, it is not possible to determine whether the source is fading.