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GCN Circular 33320

Subject
Outburst from LS V +44 17 / RX J0440.9+4431: Transient detection by GRBAlpha
Date
2023-02-13T22:14:47Z (2 years ago)
From
Marianna Dafcikova at Masaryk University <500025@mail.muni.cz>
M. Dafcikova, J. Ripa (Masaryk U.), A. Pal (Konkoly Observatory), N. Werner
(Masaryk U.), M. Ohno, H. Takahashi (Hiroshima U.), L. Meszaros, B. Csak
(Konkoly Observatory), N. Husarikova, F. Munz , M. Topinka, M. Kolar, J.-P.
Breuer, F. Hroch (Masaryk U.), T. Urbanec, M. Kasal,  A. Povalac (Brno U.
of Technology), J. Hudec, J. Kapus, M. Frajt (Spacemanic s.r.o), R. Laszlo,
M. Koleda (Needronix s.r.o), M. Smelko, P. Hanak, P. Lipovsky (Technical U.
of Kosice), G. Galgoczi (Wigner Research Center/Eotvos U.), Y. Uchida, H.
Poon, H. Matake (Hiroshima U.), N. Uchida (ISAS/JAXA), T. Bozoki (Eotvos
U.), G. Dalya (Eotvos U.), T. Enoto (Kyoto U.), Zs. Frei (Eotvos U.), G.
Friss (Eotvos U.), Y. Fukazawa, K. Hirose (Hiroshima U.), S. Hisadomi
(Nagoya U.), Y. Ichinohe (Rikkyo U.), K. Kapas (Eotvos U.), L. L. Kiss
(Konkoly Observatory),  T. Mizuno (Hiroshima U.), K. Nakazawa (Nagoya U.),
H. Odaka (Univ of Tokyo), J. Takatsy (Eotvos U.), K. Torigoe (Hiroshima
U.), N. Kogiso, M. Yoneyama (Osaka Metropolitan U.), M. Moritaki (U.
Tokyo), T. Kano (U. Michigan) -- the GRBAlpha collaboration.

The GRBAlpha 1U CubeSat (Pal et al. Proc. SPIE 2020) has detected a
transient event at the peak time 2023-02-11 17:36:19 with a duration of 13
s and an overall significance of 7.5 sigma in the 70-110 keV band. This
event is temporally consistent with the Fermi/GBM trigger no. 697829776 and
is likely an outburst from the Be/X-ray binary LS V +44 17 / RX
J0440.9+4431 (Fermi/GBM detection: GCN Circ. 33317).

The light curve obtained by GRBAlpha is available here:

https://grbalpha.konkoly.hu/static/share/LSV+4417_RXJ0440.9+4431_GCN.pdf

All GRBAlpha detections are listed at:
https://monoceros.physics.muni.cz/hea/GRBAlpha/

GRBAlpha, launched on 2021 March 22, is a demonstration mission for a
future CubeSat constellation (Werner et al. Proc. SPIE 2018). The detector
of GRBAlpha consists of a 75 x 75 x 5 mm3 CsI scintillator read out by a
SiPM array, covering the energy range from ~50 keV to ~1000 keV. To
increase the duty cycle and the downlink rate, the upgrade of the on-board
data acquisition software stack is in progress. The ground segment is also
supported by the radio amateur community and it takes advantage of the
SatNOGS network for increased data downlink volume.
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