A Bright Transient X-Ray Source Near the Galactic Center Found in Archival Ginga Data from 1987

A bright transient X-ray source was detected in the direction of the galactic center with Ginga in 1987 March. A sky position was determined from both data obtained with the All Sky Monitor (ASM) and cross-scan data obtained with the Large Area proportional Counters (LAC). Based on the sky position derived from both the ASM and the LAC data, this source was designated as GS 1741 $-$ 288. At the beginning of the Ginga observations, GS 1741 $-$ 288 was in the active state: its energy flux in the 2–10 keV energy band was $\sim$ 10 $^{-8}$ ergs $^{-1}$ cm $^{-2}$ . The ASM light curve showed that the intensity gradually decayed with an e-folding time of $190\pm9$ d. No remarkable feature, such as periodic or quasi-periodic oscillations was found. The spectral and temporal properties suggest that GS 1741 $-$ 288 is likely to be a low-mass X-ray binary system containing a weakly magnetized neutron star. Possible identification of the source is also discussed.