J/A+A/562/A2ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/562/A2doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.35620002CDSRomano P.Krimm H.A.Palmer D.M.Ducci L.Esposito P.Vercellone S.,Evans P.A.Guidorzi C.Mangano V.Kennea J.A.Barthelmy S.D.,Burrows D.N.Gehrels N.2017-12-05T05:09:59Z2014-01-29T08:19:04ZCDS support team

CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France

cds-question@unistra.frx-ray-sourcesx-ray-binary-starssurveyssupergiant-starsSupergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs) are High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs) that are defined by their hard X-ray flaring behaviour. During such flares they reach peak luminosities of 10^36^-10^37^erg/s for a few hours (in the hard X-ray): much shorter timescales than those characterizing Be/X-ray binaries. We investigate the characteristics of bright flares (detections in excess of 5{sigma}) for a sample of SFXTs and their relation to the orbital phase. We have retrieved all Swift/BAT Transient Monitor light curves, and collected all detections in excess of 5{sigma} from both daily- and orbital-averaged light curves in the time range 2005 February 12 to 2013 May 31 (MJD 53413-56443). We also considered all on-board detections as recorded in the same time span and selected those within 4 arcmin of each source in our sample and in excess of 5{sigma}. We present a catalogue of over a thousand BAT flares from 11 SFXTs, down to 15-150keV fluxes of ~6x10^-10^erg/cm^2^/s (daily timescale) and ~1.5x10^-9^erg/cm^2^/s (orbital timescale, averaging ~800s) and spanning 100 months. The great majority of these flares are unpublished. This population is characterized by short (a few hundred seconds) and relatively bright (in excess of 100mCrab, 15-50keV) events. In the hard X-ray, these flares last in general much less than a day. Clustering of hard X-ray flares can be used to indirectly measure the length of an outburst, even when the low-level emission is not detected. We construct the distributions of flares, of their significance (in terms of sigma) and their flux as a function of orbital phase, to infer the properties of these binary systems. In particular, we observe a trend of clustering of flares at some phases as P_orb increases, as consistent with a progression from tight, circular or mildly eccentric orbits at short periods, to wider and more eccentric orbits at longer orbital periods. Finally, we estimate the expected number of flares for a given source for our limiting flux and provide the recipe for calculating them for the limiting flux of future hard X-ray observatories.2014A&A...562A...2Rhttps://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/562/A2CatalogResearchIsServedByTAP VizieR generic serviceIsServedByConesearch servicerelated-toJ/ApJ/687/1230 : SFXTs observed by Swift. I. Outside outbursts (Sidoli+ 2008)J/MNRAS/397/1177 : Swift-XRT observations of GRBs (Evans+, 2009)J/A+A/510/A48 : Palermo Swift-BAT Hard X-ray Catalogue (Cusumano+, 2010)J/A+A/524/A64 : The 54-month Palermo BAT-survey catalogue (Cusumano+, 2010)J/A+A/551/A142 : 7 year Swift-XRT point source cat. (1SWXRT) (D'Elia+, 2013)J/ApJS/209/14 : The Swift/BAT hard X-ray transient monitor (Krimm+, 2013)http://www.ifc.inaf.it/sfxt/ : SFXT Home Pagehttps://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.htmlhttps://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/562/A2https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/562/A2http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/562/A2https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/562/A2https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/562/A2http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/562/A2GETtext/xml+votablehttps://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tapCone search capability for table J/A+A/562/A2/sample (Sample of confirmed SFXTs: positions and optical counterparts)https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/562/A2/sample?https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/562/A2/sample?http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/562/A2/sample?GETtext/xml+votable180.050000true130.19929167-45.058638890.0055555555555555566/28826 28875 29113 30244 30256-30257 37936 39238 42207 42215 42228-42229https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/moc/J/A+A/562/A2?format=asciiX-raydefaultJ/A+A/562/A2/sampleSample of confirmed SFXTs: positions and optical counterpartsCtpIR/optical counterpartmeta.id.crosscharrecnoRecord number assigned by the VizieR team. Should Not be used for identification.meta.recordintNameSource namemeta.id;meta.maincharprimaryn_Name[*] IGRJ11215-5952 never triggered the BATmeta.notecharRAJ2000Right ascension (J2000)pos.eq.ra;meta.mainDEJ2000Declination (J2000)pos.eq.dec;meta.mainePosError on positionarcsecstat.error;posfloatSpTypeMK Spectral type of counterpartmeta.id.assoc;src.spTypecharSimbadSimbad column added by the CDSmeta.ref.urlcharJ/A+A/562/A2/table4The 100-month Swift Catalogue of SFXTsSeq[1/1117] Unique line identifiermeta.id;meta.mainintprimaryNameSource namemeta.idcharFlag[TDod] BAT data subsample flag (1)meta.code.errorcharMJD[53418/56444] Modified Julian Datedtime.epochdoubleUTUT datestime.epochnullableDur? Flare durationstime.durationdoublenullableSigniFlare significance in sigmasstat.fit.goodnessfloatFmean? Mean flux (15-50keV)mCrabphot.flux;em.X-rayfloatnullableTrigg? BAT Trigger Number (unavailable for not BAT triggers)meta.idintnullable