XTE J1701-407 INTEGRAL and Swift observations

INTEGRAL has observed the Galactic center region starting September 18, 2008 through a long key program (KP) and several ToO observations of H1743-322. In the course of these observations, the neutron star LMXB XTE J1701-407 (Markwardt et al. 2008, ATel #1569 and ATel #1616, ATel #1621) has been detected by IBIS/ISGRI in the 20-80 keV band.

The source was always outside the field of view of the X-ray monitor JEM-X. In the latest observation, the source was also detected in the 40-80 keV band with 14 ± 2 mCrab. Simultaneous to this observation a Swift ToO was performed, starting at 2008-10-18T14:27 with an on-source time of 1.7 ksec. The combined spectrum of Swift/XRT and IBIS/ISGRI (33 ksec) can be represented by an absorbed power law with intrinsic NH = 2.2e22 1/cm^2 and photon index 2.1 ± 0.1.

The model flux in the 2-50 keV band is 3e-10 erg/cm^2/sec. Assuming a maximum distance of 6 kpc (Linares et al. 2008), this results in a luminosity of L(2-50 keV) = 1.3e+36 erg/sec. INTEGRAL will continue to observe the Galactic center region over the next revolutions. The data of the INTEGRAL ToO observations of H1743-322 are public.