A superburst candidate in EXO 1745−248 as a challenge to thermonuclear ignition models
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We report on Chandra, Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) and MAXI observations of an X-ray flare of ∼1 d and subsequent outburst of a transient X-ray source observed in 2011 October–November in the globular cluster Terzan 5. We show that the source is the same as the transient that was active in 2000, i.e. the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary EXO 1745−248. For the X-ray flare we estimate a 6–11 h exponential decay time and a radiated energy of 2–9 × 1042 erg. These properties, together with strong evidence of decreasing blackbody temperature during the flare decay, are fully consistent with what is expected for a thermonuclear superburst. We use the most recent superburst models and estimate an ignition column depth of ≈1012 g cm−2 and an energy release between 0.1 × 1018 and 2 × 1018 erg g−1, also consistent with expected superburst values. We conclude therefore that the flare was most probably a superburst. We discuss our results in the context of theoretical models and find that even when assuming a few days of low-level accretion before the superburst onset (which is more than what is suggested by the data), the observations of this superburst are very challenging for current superburst ignition models.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".