PEAK LUMINOSITIES OF BURSTS FROM GRO J1744-28 MEASURED WITH THE RXTE PCA - ITALIA - WIJ POST 17 2 4S - A ONE MAN MARCHING BAND - GOT DARN BRIGHT

GRO J1744-28, discovered by BATSE in December 95, is the second neutro n star system known to produce frequent accretion powered bursts. The system has been regularly monitored with the RXTE PCA since the peak o f the first outburst in January 96 at which time the observed persiste nt and bursting count rates were similar to 25,000 ct/sec and similar to 150,000 ct/sec, with corresponding instrumental deadtimes of simila r to 10% and greater than or equal to 50%. We present a model which al lows the reconstruction of the true incident count rate in the presenc e of enormous deadtime and use the model to derive a history of the pe ak luminosities and fluences of the bursts as a function of time. Duri ng the peak of the January 1996 and January 1997 outbursts, when the p ersistent emission was greater than or equal to 1 Crab, we infer peak luminosities of similar to 100 times the Eddington luminosity, and a r atio of persistent emission to integrated burst emission of similar to 34.