Swift/XRT Observations of RX J0059.2-7138 (formatting corrected)
ATel #5773; H. A. Krimm (CRESST/GSFC/USRA), P. A. Evans (U Leicester), J. A. Kennea (PSU), and R. H. D. Corbet (UMBC/GSFC)
on 17 Jan 2014; 22:08 UT
Credential Certification: Hans A. Krimm (Hans.Krimm@nasa.gov)
Subjects: X-ray, Binary, Transient, Pulsar
Referred to by ATel #: 5930
A single 1500-second observation of the Be/X-ray binary and transient pulsar RX J0059.2-7138 (also known as SXP 2.76) in the Small Magellanic Cloud was carried out by Swift starting at 2014 January 15 at 16:00:15.367 UT. Observations were made in PC (photon counting) mode. Using the method of Goad et al. 2007, A&A, 476, 1401, the position of the source was found to be RA=14.80208, dec=-71.64602 (00h 59m 12.50s, -71d 38' 45.7''); Error radius 2.2'' (90% confidence). Since this is fully consistent with the catalog position of the source, this confirms that the outburst seen by BAT (Krimm et al., ATel #5756) and INTEGRAL (Coe et al., ATel #5766) is indeed from RX J0059.2-7138.
The integrated spectrum is well-fitted by a power law with a photon index of 0.55 +/- 0.08. Any absorbing column is negligible with an upper limit of nH = 5.8 x 10^20 cm^-2 (90% confidence). The observed flux is 2.13 (+0.17, -0.12) X 10^-10 erg cm-2 s-1. The count rate is fairly steady at ~2.4 ct s-1 in the 0.3-10 keV band. These results were created using web tools from Evans et al. 2009, (MNRAS, 397, 1177)
The source rate in the BAT 15-50 keV energy band remains steady at 0.004 +/- 0.001 ct s-1 cm-2, which is ~18 mCrab, consistent with the INTEGRAL result reported by Coe et. al (ATel #5766).
Swift/BAT transient monitor light curve for RX J0059.2-7138