ESA Science & Technology - XMM-Newton observations of two transient millisecond X-ray pulsars in quiescence

Publication date: 16 May 2005

Authors: Campana, S., et al.

Journal: A&A
Volume: 434
Issue: 3
Page: L9-L12
Year: 2005

Copyright: European Southern Observatory

We report on XMM-Newton observations of two X-ray transient millisecond pulsars (XRTMSPs). We detected XTE J0929-314 with an unabsorbed luminosity of ~ 7x 10³¹ erg s^-1 (0.5-10 keV) at a fiducial distance of 10 kpc. The quiescent spectrum is consistent with a simple power law spectrum. The upper limit on the flux from a cooling neutron star atmosphere is about 20% of the total flux. XTE J1807-294 instead was not detected. We can put an upper limit on the source quiescent 0.5-10 keV unabsorbed luminosity ~< 4x10³¹ erg s^-1 at 8 kpc. These observations strenghten the idea that XRTMSPs have quiescent luminosities significantly lower than classical neutron star transients.