SRG/ART-XC serendipitous observation of the MAXI J0452-559/1H 0451-560 field
ATel #16448; S. V. Molkov, I. A. Mereminskiy, A. N. Semena, A. A. Lutovinov, A. Yu. Tkachenko (IKI RAS, Moscow)
on 14 Feb 2024; 16:37 UT
Credential Certification: Andrey Semena (san@iki.rssi.ru)
Subjects: X-ray, Transient
Referred to by ATel #: 16467
During the on-going all-sky survey the Mikhail Pavlinsky ART-XC telescope onboard the SRG observatory observed the sky field around the bright/soft X-ray transient MAXI J0452-559 (ATel #16445, associated with historical transient source 1H 0451-560). Over the last two days (February 13-14, 2024) about 50% of the MAXI localization region was covered with a typical sensitivity about 1x10^-11 erg/cm2/s in the 4-12 keV band. Only one source SRGA J045329.8-555126 was detected inside the MAXI localization region with the flux of 4(+/-1)x10^-11 erg/cm2/s and positional error of 10 arcseconds (all errors are 68%). There are hints that the source has faded during the successive scans, although more data is still needed for decisive conclusions.
The ART-XC source SRGA J045329.8-555126 (RA, Dec = 73.3743, -55.8572) is located well inside the MAXI localization region (offset is 7 arcmin) and coincides with a nearby (D = 11 pc) highly-active UB Ceti-type binary CD-56 1032, which is known to be a source of powerful stellar flares (Howard et al., 2019, 2022, Gunther et al., 2020) as well as X-ray source (ROSAT: Voges et al., 1999, eROSITA: Merloni et al., 2024).
Taking into account the above, MAXI J0452-559 can be tentatively associated with a stellar flare in the CD-56 1032 system. For a given distance, the peak flux measured by MAXI corresponds to the X-ray luminosity of about 2x10^31 erg/s which is typical for such events.
The monitoring of the source with SRG/ART-XC is still ongoing and we encourage follow-up observations.
ART-XC is the X-ray telescope on board the SRG observatory which was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome on 13 July 2019 by the Proton rocket. ART-XC has been renamed 'Mikhail Pavlinsky ART-XC telescope' in honor of its first PI, Dr. Mikhail Pavlinsky.
