POSSIBLE COUNTERPART OF THE NEW INTEGRAL TRANSIENT SOURCE IGR J17177-3656

ATel #3224; A. Malizia, R. Landi, V. Sguera, N. Masetti (IASF-Bo, Italy), A. Bazzano (IASF-Roma, Italy), A. J. Bird (University of Southampton, UK), C. Ferrigno (ISDC, Switzerland), M. Cadolle Bel (ESA/ESAC, Spain), K. Watanabe (FGCU, USA)
on 16 Mar 2011; 21:23 UT
Credential Certification: Raffaella Landi (landi@iasfbo.inaf.it)

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We report on the possible association of the new INTEGRAL transient source IGR J17177-3656 (Atel #3223) with an Emission-line star.

At 2.7 arcmin, just outside the 90% IBIS/ISGRI positional uncertainty and almost consistent (at 1.51 arcmin) with the 90% positional uncertainty of JEM-X position, the SIMBAD database reports the star 2MASS J17175282-3655550 ([KW2003] 9) at the following coordinates RA: 17h 17m 52.84s and Dec: -36d 55m 56.2s. The star is listed in the catalogue of new H-alpha emission line stars towards the Galactic bulge of Kohoutek and Wehmeyer (2003): it has a relatively strong H-alpha line possibly variable on top of a strong continuum.

The star is also listed in several optical and near-infrared catalogues with the following magnitudes: J=10.68, H = 10.21, K = 9.90, R = 13.3 and B = 14.4; in addition the GLIMPSE catalogue reports the following far-infrared magnitudes 5.8 micron = 9.5 and 8.0 micron = 9.0.

The sky region has been observed very shortly by the UVOT telescope on-board Swift on January 27, 2011 and a few sources were detected including the emission line star with a magnitude of 17.92 in the UVM2 filter.

Considering the transient nature of the INTEGRAL source and the proximity of the emission line star 2MASS J17175282-3655550 to the IBIS positional uncertainty, we suggest that the two objects may be associated.

Follow-up optical-infrared spectroscopy of this proposed counterpart is highly encouraged.