Abstract
Five Exosat observations made in October and November of 1984 are used to study the aperiodic X-ray variability of the X-ray pulsar SMC X-1. During the first observation, an X-ray burst was observed in which the source count rate increased by a factor of about 3 in less than 0.7 sec, and then decayed to the preburst level over the next 80 sec. The burst is not of the classical type, since it did not have a blackbody spectrum and no cooling occurred during the decay. A 35-percent decline in the persistent emission level was observed after the burst, suggesting that it was generated by an instability in the accretion flow. A power-spectrum analysis of the source light curves revealed the presence of aperiodic flux variations on a time scale from hours to tens of milliseconds. It is suggested that the burst is an extreme manifestation of the source variability on a time scale of about 100 sec. 49 refs.
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