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X-ray bursts from the Terzan 5 transient IGR J17480-2446: nuclear rather than gravitational

The 2010 outburst of the transient neutron star low-mass X-ray binary IGR J17480-2446 has exhibited a series of unique X-ray bursts, as well as millihertz (mHz) quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) related to these bursts. It has been recently proposed that these are type-II bursts, powered by the gravitational energy. This implies that the current nuclear-burning based model of mHz QPOs is not correct, and this timing feature cannot be used as a tool to measure the neutron star parameters. We report the analysis of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer data of IGR J17480-2446 to show that the burst properties of this source are quite different from the properties of the type-II bursts observed from the rapid burster and GRO J1744-28. For example, the inferred ratio (~ 50-90) of the non-burst fluence to burst fluence is consistent with the thermonuclear origin of IGR J17480-2446 bursts, and is significantly different from this ratio (< 4) for type-II bursts. Our results suggest that the bursts and the mHz QPOs from IGR J17480-2446 are powered by the nuclear energy.