The rapid burster activity observed from tenma

Abstract

The Japanese X-ray astronomy satellite Hakucho and Tenma observed the activity of the rapid burster MXB 1730-335 in 1979 and 1983. In the first observation from 8 to 22 August 1979, the activity began with rapidly repetitive type II bursts which are similar to those observed earlier. Then the energy per burst quickly increased and evolved to exhibit a long flat top or roughly trapezoidal shape. In the last phase, burst size became smaller and the activity returned to the short type II burst mode. In the second observation from 5 to 31 August 1983, the burster started to emit a train of bursts which aparently resemble to type I bursts with quasi-periodical occurrence of 74 ∼ 90 minutes. In the second phase, there appeared long type II bursts of trapezoidal profiles and exotic long bursts. In the last phase, about 3000 rapidly repetitive short type II bursts were observed. The bursts with shortest intervals exhibited almost periodic features of 16 sec. The type II bursts in both observation evolved to the size E of ∼ 6 × 10 40 erg that is one order larger than ever observed. They were long bursts ( τ ≦ 600 s) of flat topped (trapezoidal) shape and those of exotic profiles. Those type II bursts exhibited some kinds of quasi-periodicities, which implies the vibrations or instabilities of the mass accretion onto the neutron stars. The type I bursts were often observed with/without type II bursts.