TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 20729 SUBJECT: GRB 170222A: Swift-XRT observations DATE: 17/02/23 16:51:35 GMT FROM: Antonino D'Ai at IASF-PA A. D'Ai (IASF-PA), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB), P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), V. D'Elia (ASDC), S. J. LaPorte (PSU), J.A. Kennea (PSU), B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU), S.L. Gibson (U. Leicester), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester) and P.A. Evans (U. Leicester) report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team: Swift-XRT has performed follow-up observations of the IPN-detected burst GRB 170222A in a series of observations tiled on the sky and covering the entire IPN error box. The total exposure time is 5.3 ks, distributed over 3 tiles; the maximum exposure at a single sky location was 3.2 ks. The data were collected between T0+33.8 ks and T0+38.9 ks, and are entirely in Photon Counting (PC) mode. Three uncatalogued X-ray sources are detected: Source 1: RA (J2000.0): 292.95293 = 19h 31m 48.70s Dec (J2000.0): 28.04614 = +28:02:46.1 Error: 5.0 arcsec Count-rate: 1.01 (+0.21, -0.20) × 10-2 ct/s Source 2: RA (J2000.0): 292.68930 = 19h 30m 45.43s Dec (J2000.0): 27.96842 = +27:58:06.3 Error: 5.7 arcsec Count-rate: 2.4 (+0.9, -0.7) × 10-2 ct/s Source 3: RA (J2000.0): 293.02439 = 19h 32m 05.85s Dec (J2000.0): 28.26746 = +28:16:02.9 Error: 3.1 arcsec Count-rate: 8.0 (+2.8, -2.3) ×10-3 ct/s However, none of these is a credible afterglow candidate. Source 2 is outside the IPN errorbox, while sources 1 and 3 match Simbad sources NVSS J193148+280248 and CCDM J19321+2816BC. Sources 2 and 3 are affected by optical loading and might be spurious detections. The Swift XRT observations did not cover the Fermi GBM error circle reported by Hamburg et al. (GCN #20728). The results of the full analysis of the tiled XRT observations are available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/TILED_GRB00064. This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.