XMM-Newton observations of two transient millisecond X-ray pulsars in quiescence

Abstract

We report on XMM-Newton observations of two X-ray transient millisecond pulsars (XRTMSPs). We detected XTE J0929-314 with an unabsorbed luminosity of ∼7 × 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 ≲4 × 1031 erg s-1 at 8 kpc. These observations strenghten the idea that XRTMSPs have quiescent luminosities significantly lower than classical neutron star transients. © ESO 2005.