J/ApJS/279/57 Catalog of outbursts of neutron star LMXBs (Heinke+, 2025)
Catalog of outbursts of neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries.
Heinke C.O., Zheng J., Maccarone T.J., Degenaar N., Bahramian A.,
Sivakoff G.R., Toor S.
<Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 279, 57 (2025)>
=2025ApJS..279...57H 2025ApJS..279...57H
ADC_Keywords: Binaries, X-ray; Stars, neutron; Stars, distances; References
Keywords: Low-mass x-ray binary stars ; Neutron stars ; Accretion ; Catalogs
Abstract:
Many X-ray binaries (XRBs) are transiently accreting. Having
statistics on their recurrence times is helpful to address questions
related to binary evolution and populations, as well as the physics of
binary systems. We compile a catalog of known outbursts of
87 transient neutron stars (identified through bursts or pulsations)
and low-mass XRBs until mid-2025. Most outbursts are taken from the
literature, but we also identify some outbursts from public X-ray
monitoring lightcurves. We find 109 outbursts not previously
identified in the literature; most are from the frequent transients
GRS 1747-312 and the Rapid Burster MXB 1730-335, though we suspect
that two outbursts from Liller 1 may be from another transient besides
the Rapid Burster. We also find new outbursts for 10 other systems,
and verify substantial quiescent intervals for XMM J174457-2850.3,
XMMU J174716.1-281048, and AX J1754.2-2754. Outburst detection has
been relatively efficient since 1996 for outbursts above
FX(2-10keV)=3x10-10erg/cm2/s. While several systems have many
known outbursts, 40 of the 87 systems we track have zero or one
recorded outburst between 1996 and 2023. This suggests that many faint
Galactic center XRBs may be neutron star XRBs, though we cannot
completely rule out the proposition that most neutron star XRBs
undergo frequent outbursts below all-sky monitor detection limits.
File Summary:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 139 287 Published outbursts of verified neutron star LMXBs
table2.dat 120 14 Outbursts of NGC 6440 X-2
table3.dat 73 41 Outbursts of 4U 1608-52
table4.dat 96 96 Outbursts of MXB 1730-335, Rapid Burster in
globular cluster Liller 1
table5.dat 109 75 Outbursts of GRS 1747-312, eclipsing burster in
globular cluster Terzan 6
table6.dat 107 61 Outbursts of Aquila X-1
table7.dat 67 89 Recorded outbursts of Cir X-1
table8.dat 94 4 Objects that have shown X-ray bursts, but have no
recorded clear outbursts
table9.dat 55 43 Known persistent low-mass X-ray binaries
refs.dat 62 666 References
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also:
B/cb : Cataclysmic Binaries, LMXBs, and related objects (Ritter+, 2004)
IX/8 : Second Catalogue of X-ray Sources (Amnuel+ 1982)
I/352 : Distances to 1.47 billion stars in Gaia EDR3 (Bailer-Jones+, 2021)
VII/80 : The HEAO A-1 X-Ray Source Catalog (Wood+, 1984)
VII/195 : Globular Clusters in the Milky Way (Harris, 1996)
VII/202 : Globular Clusters in the Milky Way (Harris, 1997)
V/113 : Cataclysmic Binaries, LMXBs, and related objects (Ritter+, 2003)
J/A+A/469/807 : Catalogue of Galactic low-mass X-ray binaries (Liu+, 2007)
J/AJ/133/1287 : JHK phot. of 24 Galactic globular clusters (Valenti+, 2007)
J/A+A/468/49 : LMXBs in the bulge of M31 (Voss+, 2007)
J/ApJS/179/360 : Thermonuclear X-ray bursts observed by RXTE (Galloway+, 2008)
J/ApJ/716/L109 : Radio and X-ray observations of Aql X-1 (Miller-Jones+, 2010)
J/ApJ/738/129 : XMM-Newton X-ray sources in NGC 6553 (Guillot+, 2011)
J/ApJS/194/18 : The Galactic Bulge Survey: X-ray observations (Jonker+, 2011)
J/A+A/533/A33 : LMXBs detected in nearby galaxies (Zhang+, 2011)
J/ApJS/209/14 : The Swift/BAT hard X-ray transient monitor (Krimm+, 2013)
J/MNRAS/449/268 : Type II bursts in the Rapid Burster (Bagnoli+, 2015)
J/ApJ/812/149 : HSTPROMO. III. Dynamical distances (Watkins+, 2015)
J/A+A/587/A61 : BlackCAT, BH masses in X-ray trans. (Corral-Santana+, 2016)
J/ApJS/222/15 : WATCHDOG all-sky database of Gal. BHXBs (Tetarenko+, 2016)
J/ApJ/901/57 : MAVERIC survey: X-ray sources in 38 GCs (Bahramian+, 2020)
J/ApJS/249/32 : The Multi-INstrument Burst ARchive (MINBAR) (Galloway+, 2020)
J/MNRAS/501/2790 : Swift Bulge Survey. 1st X-ray results (Bahramian+, 2021)
J/ApJ/930/20 : The neutron star XRB Centaurus X-4 monitoring (Baglio+, 2022)
J/A+A/675/A199 : XRBcats. Galactic LMXB Catalogue (Avakyan+, 2023)
J/A+A/684/A124 : Galactic LMXBs catalog (Fortin+, 2024)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 22 A22 --- Name Outburst object name
23 A1 --- f_Name [?] Flag on Name (1)
25- 31 A7 "Y/M" Start Outburst begin, approximate
33- 39 A7 "Y/M" End Outburst end, approximate
40 A1 --- n_End Flag on End (2)
42- 48 E7.1 mW/m2 FxPk Peak 2-10 keV X-ray flux, erg/s/cm2 (3)
50- 50 A1 --- l_NH Limit flag on NH
51- 58 E8 cm-2 NH ? Column (number) density, hydrogen
60- 63 F4.2 --- Ind1 ? Power-law Spectral Index, or lower bound
on index
65- 65 I1 --- Ind2 ? When a range is given, this is the
upper bound on the power-law index
67- 67 A1 --- l_LxPk Limit flag on PeakLx
68- 75 E8.1 10-7W LxPk Peak 2-10keV Luminosity, erg/s (4)
77- 77 A1 --- l_Dist Limit flag on Dist
78- 83 F6.2 kpc Dist Assumed distance
85-139 A55 --- Ref References (G1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): SAX J1748.9-2021 has been verified to be the object in outburst
in all bright detected outbursts, except the 1971 outburst, but the
similarity of that outburst to others verified to be SAX J1748.9-2021
suggests that it was responsible.
For SAX J1753.5-2349, we include an INTEGRAL-detected outburst in
2006, designated IGR J17536-2339 by Turler+ (2006ATel..790....1T 2006ATel..790....1T),
which may or may not be this object.
Note (2): A * indicates that we do not have evidence that the outburst
ended?the last recorded observation found it active.
Note (3): Max FX is highest reported flux in each outburst,
transformed to 2-10keV, generally using the power-law spectral
index (Ind1) & NH provided in this table.
Note (4): Peak observed intrinsic LX in 2-10keV, for the assumed
distance (Dist).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 12 A12 --- Name Outburst object name
14- 20 A7 "Y/M" Date Outburst date or first outburst date window
21 A1 --- --- [-]
22- 28 A7 "Y/M" Date2 ? Last outburst date for date windows
30- 34 I5 d MJD Modified Julian date of outburst
36- 42 E7.1 mW/m2 FxPk Peak 2-10 keV X-ray flux, erg/s/cm2 (1)
44- 47 F4.2 --- Ind ? Power-law Spectral Index
49- 55 E7.1 10-7W LxPk Peak 2-10 keV Luminosity, ergs/s (2)
57-120 A64 --- Ref References (G1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Max FX is highest reported flux in each outburst,
transformed to 2-10 keV, generally using the power-law spectral
index (Ind) and assuming NH∼6E+21cm-2.
Note (2): Peak observed intrinsic LX in 2-10keV, for the assumed
distance, 8.5kpc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 10 A10 --- Name Outburst object name
12- 18 A7 "Y/M" Date1 Outburst date or first outburst date
for date windows
19 A1 --- --- [-]
20- 26 A7 "Y/M" Date2 Last outburst date for date windows
27 A1 --- l_FxPk Limit flag on PeakFx
28- 35 E8.2 mW/m2 FxPk Peak 2-10 keV X-ray flux, erg/s/cm2 (1)
37- 37 A1 --- l_LxPk Limit flag on PeakLx
38- 45 E8.2 10-7W LxPk Peak 2-10 keV Luminosity, ergs/s (2)
47- 73 A27 --- Ref References (G1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Max FX is highest reported flux in each outburst,
transformed to 2-10keV, generally using the power-law spectral
index of 1.7 (Mitsuda+ 1984PASJ...36..741M 1984PASJ...36..741M) and
assuming NH∼2E+22cm-2 (Gottwald+ 1987MNRAS.229..395G 1987MNRAS.229..395G).
Note (2): Peak observed intrinsic LX in 2-10keV,
for the assumed distance, 3.2kpc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table4.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 13 A13 --- Name Outburst object name (1)
15- 21 A7 "Y/M" Date1 Outburst date or first outburst date
for date windows
22 A1 --- --- [-]
23- 29 A7 "Y/M" Date2 ? Last outburst date for date windows
31- 35 I5 d MJD [41028/60791] Modified Julian date of outburst
37- 43 E7.1 mW/m2 FxPk [6.3e-10/1.8e-08]? Peak 2-10keV X-ray flux,
erg/s/cm2 (2)
45- 51 E7.1 10-7W LxPk ? Peak 2-10keV Luminosity, ergs/s (3)
53- 96 A44 --- Ref References (G1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): "?" denotes that it may or may not be this object.
Note (2): Max FX is highest reported flux in each outburst,
transformed to 2-10 keV.
Note (3): Peak observed intrinsic LX in 2-10 keV, for the assumed
distance, 8kpc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table5.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 12 A12 --- Name Outburst object name (1)
13 A1 --- f_Name Flag on Name (2)
15- 21 A7 "Y/M" Date Outburst date
24- 25 I2 --- Epoch ? Epoch number, Simon 2009NewA...14..443S 2009NewA...14..443S
27- 31 I5 d MJD Modified Julian date of outburst
33- 39 E7.1 mW/m2 FxPk Peak 2-10keV X-ray flux, erg/s/cm2 (3)
41- 47 E7.1 10-7W LxPk Peak 2-10keV Luminosity, ergs/s (4)
49-109 A61 --- Ref References (G1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Saji+ 2016PASJ...68S..15S 2016PASJ...68S..15S identify an outburst as likely produced
by a different X-ray transient, labeled in this table as
"Ter 6 X-2?".
Note (2): * indicates a reported eclipse during a pointed X-ray observation.
Note (3): Max FX is highest reported flux in each outburst,
transformed to 2-10keV, generally assuming NH∼1.4E+22cm-2,
Note (4): Peak observed intrinsic LX in 2-10keV, for the assumed
distance, 7.3kpc (Baumgardt & Vasiliev 2021MNRAS.505.5957B 2021MNRAS.505.5957B).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table6.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 7 A7 --- Name Outburst object name
9- 15 A7 "Y/M" Start Outburst begin date, approximate
17- 23 A7 "Y/M" End Outburst end date, approximate
25- 31 E7.1 mW/m2 FxPk [7.6e-10/3.1e-08]? Peak 2-10keV X-ray flux,
erg/s/cm2 (1)
33- 39 E7.1 10-7W LxPk ? Peak 2-10keV Luminosity, ergs/s (2)
41-107 A67 --- Ref References (G1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Max FX is highest reported flux in each outburst,
transformed to 2-10 keV, generally using the power-law spectral
index (Ind) and assuming NH∼4E+21cm-2
Note (2): Peak observed intrinsic LX in 2-10keV, for the assumed
distance, 4.5kpc (Galloway+ 2008, J/ApJS/179/360).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table7.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 7 A7 --- Name Outburst object name
9- 15 A7 "Y/M" Date Outburst date
17- 21 I5 d MJD ? Modified Julian date of outburst
23- 29 E7.1 mW/m2 FxPk Peak 2-10 keV X-ray flux, erg/s/cm2 (1)
31- 37 E7.1 10-7W LxPk Peak 2-10 keV Luminosity, ergs/s (2)
39- 67 A29 --- Ref References (G1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Max FX is highest reported flux in each outburst,
transformed to 2-10keV, generally using the power-law spectral
index (Ind) and assuming NH∼2E+22cm-2
Note (2): Peak observed intrinsic LX in 2-10keV, for the assumed
distance, 9.4kpc (Heinz+ 2015ApJ...806..265H 2015ApJ...806..265H).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table8.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 16 A16 --- Name Outburst object name (1)
18- 24 A7 "Y/M" Date Outburst date
26- 26 A1 --- l_FxPk Limit flag on PeakFx
28- 34 E7.1 mW/m2 FxPk Peak 2-10 keV X-ray flux, erg/s/cm2
36- 36 A1 --- q_NH Quality flag on NH, :=approximate
38- 44 E7.1 cm-2 NH ? Column (number) density, hydrogen
46- 46 A1 --- l_LxPk Limit flag on PeakLx
48- 54 E7.1 10-7W LxPk Peak 2-10 keV Luminosity, ergs/s
56- 56 A1 --- l_Dist Limit flag on Dist
58- 60 F3.1 kpc Dist Assumed distance
62- 94 A33 --- Ref References (G1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Note that AX J1824.5-2451, in M28, may be IGR J18245-2452, the
burster and transitional MSP, or may not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table9.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 21 A21 --- Name Persistent low-mass X-ray binary name (1)
23- 45 A23 --- OName Alternate Name(s)
47- 53 A7 --- Nature Nature ("burster" or "pulsar")
55- 55 A1 --- Flag Flag (2)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): These are the objects that appear to be persistent sources,
from the MINBAR catalog of X-ray bursters (Galloway+ 2020, J/ApJS/249/32),
along with persistent X-ray pulsar LMXBs from
Patruno & Watts (2021ASSL..461..143P 2021ASSL..461..143P).
Note (2): a = 4U 2129+12 refers to both bright X-ray sources in M15.
AC 211 in M15 is generally believed to contain a NS as well
(van Zyl+ 2004MNRAS.350..649V 2004MNRAS.350..649V), but we do not include it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: refs.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 24 A24 --- Ref Reference code
26- 44 A19 --- BibCode Bibcode of the reference if any
46- 62 A17 --- Comm Archive comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Global notes:
Note (G1): Reference to an instrument (e.g. MAXI) indicates we have made use
of that instrument's archive. See refs.dat file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 17-Mar-2026