X-ray bursts from GX 17+2 : a new approach.
Abstract
The authors report the detection of two X-ray bursts from GX 17+2; a short one (lasting about 10 s), and a long one (which lasted about 5 min). These bursts reached a maximum intensity of only about 40 per cent above the persistent flux level. Like previous long bursts observed from GX 17+2, the long burst showed little softening during its decay, and it is difficult at first glance to classify it as either a type 1 or a type 2 burst. Following the recent results of van Paradijs and Lewin (1986) the authors have made a time-dependent spectral analysis of these bursts. The analysis provides a consistent description of the intensity and spectral variations during the burst in terms of the luminosity (and temperature) variation of a hot blackbody (or blackbody-like) emitter. Outside the burst the blackbody component contributes about 40 per cent to the persistent emission. This result probably resolves the previous ambiguity in the classification of bursts from GX 17+2 as type 1 or type 2, and indicates that, in spite of their unusual properties, these bursts are due to thermonuclear flashes.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- November 1986
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/222.3.499
- Bibcode:
- 1986MNRAS.222..499S
- Keywords:
-
- Radiant Flux Density;
- Spectrum Analysis;
- Stellar Spectrophotometry;
- X Ray Spectra;
- Black Body Radiation;
- Bremsstrahlung;
- Bursts;
- Thermal Radiation;
- Thermonuclear Reactions;
- Astrophysics