SuperAGILE detection of an X-ray burst from 4U 1608-522

ATel #2461; E. Del Monte, I. Donnarumma, L. Pacciani, Y. Evangelista, M. Feroci, F. Lazzarotto, P. Soffitta, E. Costa, I. Lapshov, M. Rapisarda (INAF/IASF Rome), A. Giuliani, A. Chen, S. Mereghetti, F. Perotti, P. Caraveo (INAF/IASF Milan), A. Pellizzoni, M. Pilia (INAF/OA Cagliari), F. D'Ammando, S. Vercellone (INAF/IASF Palermo), A. Bulgarelli, F. Gianotti, M. Trifoglio, G. Di Cocco, C. Labanti, F. Fuschino, M. Marisaldi, M. Galli, (INAF/IASF Bologna), M. Tavani, V. Vittorini, E. Striani, A. Argan, A. Trois, G. Piano, S. Sabatini (INAF/IASF Rome), G. Barbiellini, F. Longo, E. Moretti (INFN Trieste), P. Picozza, A. Morselli (INFN Roma-2), M. Prest, E. Vallazza (Universita` dell'Insubria), P. Lipari, D. Zanello (INFN Roma-1), P. W. Cattaneo, A. Rappoldi (INFN Pavia), and C. Pittori, F. Verrecchia, P. Santolamazza, F. Lucarelli, S. Colafrancesco, P. Giommi (ASDC) and L. Salotti (ASI)
on 3 Mar 2010; 14:22 UT
Credential Certification: Ettore Del Monte (ettore.delmonte@iasf-roma.inaf.it)

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On 3 March 2010, at 06:33:25 UT SuperAGILE detected an X-ray burst with duration of about 8 s. The detection is statistically significant only in the energy band 17 - 25 keV. The burst was localized at coordinates RA=243.1868 (16h 12m 44.83s), dec=-52.4192 (-52d 25' 08.97"), with 3 arcmin error radius, in a position consistent with the neutron star transient and atoll source 4U 1608-522, that lies at a distance of about 0.4 arcmin from the SuperAGILE localization. In the energy range between 17 and 25 keV, assuming a blackbody spectrum with a temperature of 3 keV, the observed rate corresponds to an average flux of 5*10^-9 erg/cm^2/s and to a fluence of 4*10^-8 erg/cm^2. Taking into account a distance of 5.8 kpc and a mass of 1.74 solar masses (Guver et al. 2010, arXiv:0811.3979v4), the luminosity of the burst is 2.1*10^37 erg/s and corresponds to about 0.1 Eddington luminosity. The source was announced on October 2009 to have returned to a quiescent state after the 2007-2009 outburst (Linares et al. 2009, ATel #2264).