A four-hours long burst from Serpens X-1
Astrophysics
2009-11-07 v1
Abstract
During a serendipitous observation of the BeppoSAX Wide Field Cameras, a very long Type I X-ray burst was observed from the low mass X-ray binary Serpens X-1. The burst lasted for approximately 4 hours and had an exponential decay time of 69+/-2 min (2-28 keV). The bolometric peak-luminosity is (1.6+/-0.2)x10^38 erg/s and the fluence (7.3+/-1.4)x10^41 erg. The first 'normal' Type I burst was observed 34 days after the superburst. This is in rough agreement with recent predictions for unstable carbon burning in a heavy element ocean.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0111263,
title = {A four-hours long burst from Serpens X-1},
author = {R. Cornelisse and E. Kuulkers and J. J. M. in 't Zand and F. Verbunt and J. Heise},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0111263},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication by A&A