Discovery of the shortest recurrence time between thermonuclear X- ray bursts

Linares, M.; Watts, A.; Altamirano, D.; Patruno, A.; Casella, P.; Rea, N.; Soleri, P.; van der Klis, M.; Wijnands, R.; Belloni, T.; Homan, J.; Mendez, M.
Bibliographical reference

The Astronomer's Telegram, #1979

Advertised on:
3
2009
Number of authors
12
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
11
Refereed citations
11
Description
An RXTE observation of 4U 1636-536 taken on March 10th, 2009, revealed two type I X-ray bursts from this well studied neutron star low-mass X- ray binary (NS-LMXB). The recurrence time (wait time) between the two events, 5.4 minutes, is the shortest observed in any NS-LMXB. The average spectrum exhibited by both bursts was thermal. We performed time- resolved spectroscopy along the bursts, using a black body model and an absorbing column density of 0.3e22 cm-2 (Fiocchi et al.