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Discovery of intense X-ray bursts from the globular cluster NGC 6624

DOI

248

Citations

0

References

1976

Year

J. E. Grindlay, H. Gursky, H. Schnopper, D. R. Parsignault, J. Heise, A. C. Brinkman, C. J. Schrijver
The Astrophysical Journal

Abstract

A new type of time variation of cosmic X-ray sources has been found from the Astronomical Netherlands Satellite (ANS) observations of the source 3U 1820-30, associated with the globular cluster NGC 6624. Two bursts in the 1-30 keV X-ray intensity of this source are reported. Each displayed a rapid rise in flux (no more than 1 s) by a factor of 20-30 followed by an approximately 8-s exponential decay. These bursts appear to be qualitatively different from short time variations previously reported for X-ray sources. Analysis for further source variability, energy spectra, and position is presented. The characteristics of these events may imply the existence of a collapsed core in the globular cluster.