Restless quiescence: thermonuclear flashes between transient X-ray outbursts

Kuulkers, E.; Zand, J. J. M. in ’t; Lasota, Jean–Pierre

doi:10.1051/0004-6361/200810981

Cited by 37 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 81 publications

(145 reference statements)

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“…It is interesting to note that, at odds with a number of previously studied systems (Kuulkers et al 2009), the long Type-I burst burst recorded by Swift J1734.5-3027 is unlikely to be the event triggering the overall outburst of the source. The INTEGRAL observations carried out in rev.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Swift J1734.5-3027: a new long Type-I X-ray bursting source

Bozzo

Romano

Falanga

et al. 2015

A&A

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Swift J1734.5-3027 is a hard X-ray transient discovered by Swift while undergoing an outburst in September 2013. Archival observations showed that this source underwent a previous episode of enhanced X-ray activity in 2013 May−June. In this paper we report on the analysis of all X-ray data collected during the outburst in 2013 September, the first that could be intensively followed up by several X-ray facilities. Our dataset includes INTEGRAL, Swift, and XMM-Newton observations. From the timing and spectral analysis of these observations, we show that a long Type-I X-ray burst took place during the source outburst, making Swift J1734.5-3027 a new member of the class of bursting neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries. The burst lasted for about 1.9 ks and reached a peak flux of (6.0 ± 1.8) × 10 −8 erg cm −2 s −1 in the 0.5−100 keV energy range. The estimated burst fluence in the same energy range is (1.10 ± 0.10) × 10 −5 erg cm −2 . By assuming that a photospheric radius expansion took place during the first ∼200 s of the burst and that the accreted material was predominantly composed by He, we derived a distance to the source of 7.2 ± 1.5 kpc.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Swift J1734.5-3027: a new long Type-I X-ray bursting source

Bozzo

Romano

Falanga

et al. 2015

A&A

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“…Only a few observations of thermonuclear flashes occurring before the start of an outburst have been recorded (e.g. Cornelisse, Wijnands & Homan 2007; Kuulkers, in 't Zand & Lasota 2009a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Puzzling thermonuclear burst behaviour from the transient low-mass X-ray binary IGR J17473−2721

Chenevez¹,

Altamirano²,

Zand³

et al. 2010

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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We investigate the thermonuclear bursting behaviour of IGR J17473−2721, an X‐ray transient that in 2008 underwent a 6‐month long outburst, starting (unusually) with an X‐ray burst. We detected a total of 57 thermonuclear bursts throughout the outburst with AGILE, Swift, Rossi X‐ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) and the INTErnational Gamma‐Ray Astrophysics Laboratory(INTEGRAL). The wide range of inferred accretion rates (between <1 and ≃20 per cent of the Eddington accretion rate ) spanned during the outburst allows us to study changes in the nuclear burning processes and to identify up to seven different phases. The burst rate increased gradually with the accretion rate until it dropped (at a persistent flux corresponding to ≃15 per cent of ) a few days before the outburst peak, after which bursts were not detected for a month. As the persistent emission subsequently decreased, the bursting activity resumed at a much lower rate than during the outburst rise. This hysteresis may arise from the thermal effect of the accretion on the surface nuclear burning processes, and the time‐scale is roughly consistent with that expected for the neutron star crust thermal response. On the other hand, an undetected ‘superburst’, occurring within a data gap near the outburst peak, could have produced a similar quenching of burst activity.

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“…In particular, faint transients were recognized as a distinctive class with the observations of BeppoSAX (Heise et al 1999). Just as for other transients, the outbursts of the faint ones can be accomodated by the classical disk instability model (King & Ritter 1998;Lasota 2001, for a review), provided their orbital periods are between 80-120 min (King 2000). Yet, these faint transients are markedly concentrated towards the Galactic center (GC) (in't Zand 2001), and generally harbor a neutron star as a compact object, which is inferred from the presence of type-I X-ray bursts in the light curves of these systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bursting behavior of the Galactic center faint X-ray transient GRS 1741.9–2853

Trap

Falanga

Goldwurm

et al. 2009

A&A

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Aims. The neutron star low-mass X-ray binary GRS 1741.9-2853 is a known type-I burster at the Galactic center. It is transient, faint, and located in a very crowded region, only 10 from the supermassive black hole Sgr A . Therefore, its bursting behavior has been poorly studied so far. In particular, its persistent emission has rarely been detected between consecutive bursts, because of lack of sensitivity or confusion. This caused GRS 1741.9-2853 to be one of the nine "burst-only sources" identified by BeppoSAX a few years ago. The physical properties of GRS 1741.9-2853 bursts are of significant interest beacause we know little about the nuclear regimes of low accretion rate bursters. For the first time we analyze several bursts along with the persistent emission of the source, using INTEGRAL, XMM-Newton, and Swift observations. Methods. We investigate the source flux variability and bursting behavior during its 2005 and 2007 long outbursts. These events were monitored almost entirely by INTEGRAL, both in the soft (3-20 keV) and hard (20-100 keV) X-ray bands, and also partly by XMM-Newton and Swift (2-10 keV) in 2007.Results. In its last activity periods, 2005 and 2007, the persistent luminosity of GRS 1741.9-2853 varied between ∼1.7 and 10.5 × 10 36 erg s −1 , i.e., 0.9−5.3% of the Eddington luminosity. The shape of the spectrum as described by an absorbed power-law remained with a photon index Γ ≈ 2 and a column density N H ≈ 12 × 10 22 cm −2 throughout the outbursts. We discovered 11 type-I bursts with INTEGRAL, and inspected four additional bursts: two recorded by XMM-Newton and two by Swift. From the brightest burst, we derive an upper limit to the source distance of ∼7 kpc. The observed bursts characteristics and source accretion rate infer pure helium explosions igniting at column depths y ign ≈ 0.8 − 4.8 × 10 8 g cm −2 , for typical energy releases of ∼1.2 − 7.4 × 10 39 erg.

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Restless quiescence: thermonuclear flashes between transient X-ray outbursts

Cited by 37 publications

References 81 publications

Swift J1734.5-3027: a new long Type-I X-ray bursting source

Swift J1734.5-3027: a new long Type-I X-ray bursting source

Puzzling thermonuclear burst behaviour from the transient low-mass X-ray binary IGR J17473−2721

Bursting behavior of the Galactic center faint X-ray transient GRS 1741.9–2853

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