Discovery of Thermonuclear Type-I X-ray Bursts from the X-ray binary MAXI J1807+132

Abstract

MAXI J1807+132 is a low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) first detected in outburst in 2017. Observations during the 2017 outburst did not allow for an unambiguous identification of the nature of the compact object. MAXI J1807+132 was detected in outburst again in 2019 and was monitored regularly with NICER. In this paper we report on five days of observations during which we detected three thermonuclear (Type-I) X-ray bursts, identifying the system as a neutron star LMXB. Time-resolved spectroscopy of the three Type-I bursts revealed typical characteristics expected for these phenomena. All three Type-I bursts show slow rises and long decays, indicative of mixed H/He fuel. We find no strong evidence that any of the Type-I bursts reached the Eddington Luminosity; however, under the assumption that the brightest X-ray burst underwent photospheric radius expansion, we estimate a <12.4kpc upper limit for the distance. We searched for burst oscillations during the Type-I bursts from MAXI J1807+132 and found none (<10% amplitude upper limit at 95% confidence level). Finally, we found that the brightest Type-I burst shows a ~1.6sec pause during the rise. This pause is similar to one recently found with NICER in a bright Type-I burst from the accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658. The fact that Type-I bursts from both sources can show this type of pause suggests that the origin of the pauses is independent of the composition of the burning fuel, the peak luminosity of the Type-I bursts, or whether the NS is an X-ray pulsar.

9 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• A NICER look at thermonuclear X-ray bursts from Aql X-1
• Catalog of outbursts of neutron star LMXBs
• Evolution of the Accretion Disk and Corona During the Outburst of the Neutron Star Transient MAXI J1807+132
• Simultaneous Optical and X-ray Detection of a Thermonuclear Burst in the 2024 Outburst of EXO 0748-676
• A Multi-wavelength Characterization of the 2023 Outburst of MAXI J1807+132: Manifestations of Disk Instability and Jet Emission
• The orbital period and inclination of the neutron star X-ray transient MAXI J1807+132
• Thermonuclear Type-I X-ray Bursts and Burst Oscillations from the Eclipsing AMXP Swift J1749.4-2807
• Exploring the spectral characteristics of the periodic burster 4U 1323-62: Type-I X-ray burst and persistent emission
• The 2025 outburst of IGR J17511-3057: timing and spectral insights from NICER and NuSTAR