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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 2(490), p. L161-L164, 1997

DOI: 10.1086/311038

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An Unusual X-ray Burst from the Globular Cluster M28

Journal article published in 1997 by E. V. Gotthelf ORCID, S. R. Kulkarni
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We report the discovery of an unusual X-ray burst from the direction of the Globular Cluster M28 using data acquired with the ASCA Observatory. The burst was recorded by all four ASCA telescopes and displays a fast (~ 70 ms) rise followed by an exponential decay (t = 7.5 s) and a steady afterglow which lasts between 800 - 3250 s. The image of the burst is consistent with an ASCA point source and is centered on quiescent X-ray emission from the core of M28. The burst temporal profile is similar to Type-I bursts emitted by accreting neutron stars of low mass X-ray binaries (LMXB). We argue that the burst arises from an LMXB that is located in the core of M28. The burst is unique in two ways: it is intrinsically sub-luminous, ~ 0.02 L_Edd and more importantly, originates from a source whose quiescent luminosity is fainter than that of the known cluster bursters by three orders of magnitude. We suggest that this burst is from a highly magnetized neutron star accreting at a low rate. These accreting systems may account for the mysterious low luminosity X-ray sources in globular clusters. ; Comment: 13 pages with 3 eps figures, LATEX, aastex, psfig. To appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letters