Radio detection of the new outburst phase of the recurrent black hole GX 339-4: MeerKAT observations
ATel #15580; Evangelia Tremou (NRAO), Stephane Corbel (Universite de Paris Cite), Rob Fender (Oxford & UCT), Patrick Woudt (UCT), James Miller-Jones (Curtin), Sara Motta (INAF-OAB), Gregory R. Sivakoff (University of Alberta) on behalf of the ThunderKAT collaboration
on 30 Aug 2022; 15:58 UT
Credential Certification: Evangelia Tremou (etremou@nrao.edu)
Subjects: Radio, Binary, Black Hole, Transient
As part of the ThunderKAT Large Survey Programme (Fender et al. 2017, arXiv:1711.04132), the recurrent transient black hole candidate GX 339-4 is observed on a weekly basis with the MeerKAT radio telescope, located in South Africa. The latest MeerKAT observations showed that GX 339-4 is entering a new outburst phase.
Following the X-ray detections with MAXI (ATel#15577) and Swift/XRT (ATel#15578), we report the MeerKAT radio detection of GX 339-4. We observed on 2022-08-27 15:13:00 UTC at a central frequency of 1.284 GHz (L-band) with a total bandwidth of 860MHz for an on-source integration time of 10 minutes. We detected a point source at the location of GX 339-4 with a flux density of 2.24 ± 0.05mJy
We encourage further multi-wavelength observations of this outburst of GX 339-4.
ThunderKAT targets X-ray binaries, cataclysmic variables, supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. As part of this programme we perform weekly monitoring observations of all bright, active, southern hemisphere X-ray binaries in the radio band. For further information on this programme please contact Rob Fender and/or Patrick Woudt.
We thank the staff at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) for scheduling and carrying out these observations. The MeerKAT telescope is operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation.
