The RXTE All Sky Monitor: First Year of Performance
Ronald A. Remillard, Alan M. Levine

TL;DR
The RXTE All Sky Monitor has provided over a year of X-ray observations of celestial sources, detecting numerous sources and states, and offering valuable data for understanding X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, and transient phenomena.
Contribution
This paper presents the first-year performance data of the RXTE ASM, including source detections, light curve analysis, and insights into X-ray source behavior and outburst mechanisms.
Findings
109 sources detected, including 16 transients
Observed complex light curves and new emission states
Detected state changes in key X-ray binaries
Abstract
The RXTE All Sky Monitor provides a public database that includes more than one year of X-ray monitoring observations (2-12 keV) of X-ray binaries and a few active galactic nuclei. The instrument operates with a 40% duty cycle, and the exposures yield roughly 5 celestial scans per day. There have been 109 source detections, including 16 X-ray transients, the majority of which are recurrent cases. The two sources of relativistic radio jets have exhibited particularly complex light curves and new types of emission states. Progress has been achieved in understanding the outburst mechanism via the reported detection of an optical precursor to the April 1996 X-ray outburst in GRO J1655-40. The ASM has also detected state changes in both Cyg X-1 and Cyg X-3, leading to new constraints on the accretion disk geometry associated with the ``soft/high'' state. X-ray variations are seen in…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstrophysical Phenomena and Observations · Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation · Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
