A SEARCH FOR THE OPTICAL COUNTERPART OF THE LUMINOUS X-RAY SOURCE IN NGC-6652

We examine images of the held of X1832-330, the luminous (L-x similar to 10(36) ergs s(-1)) X-ray burst source near the center of the globul ar cluster NGC 6652, in order to identify the optical counterpart for further study. U and B ground-based images allow us to set a limit M-B o greater than or similar to 3.5 for the counterpart at the time of th ose observations, provided that the color is (U-B)(o) similar to -1, s imilar to the sources known in other clusters. Archival Nubble Space T elescope observations survey most, but not all, of the 1 sigma X-ray e rror circle and allow us to set limits M-Bo > 5.9 and M-Bo > 5.2 in th e Wide Field Planetary Camera 1 (WF/PC-1) and Wide Field Planetary Cam era 2 (WFPC2) regions, respectively. In the WF/PC-1 images we do weakl y detect a faint object with UV excess, but it is located 11.'' 7 from the ROSAT X-ray position. This considerable (2.3 sigma) discrepancy i n position suggests that this candidate be treated with caution, but i t remains the only reasonable one advanced thus far. We measure for th is star m(439) = 20.2 +/- 0.2 and m(336) - m(439) = -0.5 +/- 0.2 and e stimate M-Bo = 5.5 and (U-B)(o) = -0.9, similar to other known optical counterparts. If this candidate is not the identification, our limits imply that the true counterpart, not yet identified, is probably the optically faintest cluster source yet known or, alternatively, that it did not show significant UV excess at the time of these observations. Finally, we assess the outlook for the identification of the remainin g luminous globular cluster X-ray sources.