Flares from a new Integral hard X-ray source, IGR J17407-2808, likely associated with the ROSAT source SBM 10

This new hard X-ray source, IGR J17407-2808, is positionally coincident with a faint ROSAT source listed as no. 10 in the catalogue of sources in the Galactic Center region by Sidoli, Belloni & Mereghetti 2001, A&A 368, 835 and as 2RXP J174040.9-280852 in the ROSAT Source Browser. No other observations of [SBM2001] 10 have been published up to date.

The flares were observed with the IBIS instrument in the 20-60 keV energy range, starting at MJD 53287.6310 and over a timespan of 2000 seconds finishing in a strong flare at MJD 53287.6327. Before and after this time period the source was not detected.

The last flare, with peak fluxes of 0.8±0.1 Crab and 0.6±0.1 Crab in the energy ranges 20-40 keV and 40-60 keV respectively, triggered an automatic alert message of the Integral Burst Alert System (IBAS Alert #2010) which led to the discovery of the source (Gotz et al., GCN Circ. #2793). The source was outside the FOV of the JEM-X and OMC monitor instruments during this flare.

Note that the position of J17407-2808 is inconsistent with that of the X-ray burster SLX 1737-282 [AX J1740.7-2818] (in't Zand et al. 2002, A&A 389, L43), which is just ~11 arcmin away. The correct Integral attitude is confirmed by other bright sources in the FOV.