The strongest cosmic magnets: soft gamma-ray repeaters and anomalous X-ray pulsars
Abstract:
Two classes of X-ray pulsars, the anomalous X-ray pulsars and the soft gamma-ray repeaters, have been recognized in the last decade as the most promising candidates for being magnetars: isolated neutron stars powered by magnetic energy. I review the observational properties of these objects, focussing on the most recent results, and their interpretation in the magnetar model. Alternative explanations, in particular those based on accretion from residual disks, are also considered. The possible relations between these sources and other classes of neutron stars and astrophysical objects are also discussed.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
A new low magnetic field magnetar: the 2011 outburst of Swift J1822.3–1606
Nanda Rea,G. L. Israel,Paolo Esposito,José A. Pons,Ascension Camero-Arranz,Roberto Mignani,Roberto Mignani,Roberto Turolla,Roberto Turolla,Silvia Zane,Marta Burgay,Andrea Possenti,Sergio Campana,Teruaki Enoto,Neil Gehrels,Ersin Gogus,D. Gotz,Chryssa Kouveliotou,Kazuo Makishima,Sandro Mereghetti,S. R. Oates,David Palmer,Rosalba Perna,Luigi Stella,Andrea Tiengo,Andrea Tiengo +25 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report on the long-term X-ray monitoring with Swift J1822.3−1606 from the first observations soon after the detection of short Xray bursts which led to its discovery, through the first stages of its outburst decay (covering the time span from 2011 July until the end of 2012 April).
Journal ArticleDOI
A variable absorption feature in the X-ray spectrum of a magnetar
Andrea Tiengo,Andrea Tiengo,Andrea Tiengo,Paolo Esposito,Sandro Mereghetti,Roberto Turolla,Roberto Turolla,L. Nobili,Fabio Gastaldello,Diego Götz,G. L. Israel,Nanda Rea,Luigi Stella,Silvia Zane,Giovanni F. Bignami,Giovanni F. Bignami +15 more
TL;DR: The X-ray spectrum of SGR 0418+5729 has an absorption line, the properties of which depend strongly on the star’s rotational phase, and this line is interpreted as a proton cyclotron feature and its energy implies a magnetic field ranging from 2 × 1014 gauss to more than 1015gauss.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gamma-ray Burst Afterglow Plateaus and Gravitational Waves: Multi-messenger Signature of a Millisecond Magnetar?
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the possibility that the formation of a highly magnetized millisecond pulsar, pumping energy into the fireball on timescales longer than the prompt emission, could explain the existence of a shallow decay phase in early X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts.
Posted Content
Neutrino electromagnetic interactions: a window to new physics
TL;DR: In this article, the theory and phenomenology of neutrino electromagnetic interactions are reviewed, and the experimental bounds on neutrinos electromagnetic properties are presented with the predictions of theories beyond the Standard Model.
Journal ArticleDOI
GRB afterglow plateaus and Gravitational Waves: multi-messenger signature of a millisecond magnetar?
Alessandra Corsi,Peter Mészáros +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the possibility that the formation of a highly magnetized millisecond pulsar, pumping energy into the fireball on timescales longer than the prompt emission, could explain the existence of a shallow decay phase in the early X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts.
References
More filters
Book
Compact Stellar X-ray Sources
TL;DR: A decade of X-ray sources and their evolution is described in this paper, with a focus on the formation and evolution of super-soft sources and the formation of compact stellar sources.
Journal ArticleDOI
Formation of very strongly magnetized neutron stars - Implications for gamma-ray bursts
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that a convective dynamo can also generate a very strong dipole field after the merger of a neutron star binary, but only if the merged star survives for as long as about 10-100 ms.
Journal ArticleDOI
The soft gamma repeaters as very strongly magnetized neutron stars - I. Radiative mechanism for outbursts
Journal ArticleDOI
The Soft Gamma Repeaters as Very Strongly Magnetized Neutron Stars. II. Quiescent Neutrino, X-Ray, and Alfvén Wave Emission
TL;DR: In this article, the decay rate of the core field is a very strong function of temperature and therefore of the magnetic flux density, which is not present in the decay of the weaker fields associated with ordinary radio pulsars.
Journal ArticleDOI
An X-ray pulsar with a superstrong magnetic field in the soft γ-ray repeater SGR1806 − 20
Chryssa Kouveliotou,Chryssa Kouveliotou,S. Dieters,S. Dieters,Tod E. Strohmayer,Tod E. Strohmayer,J. van Paradijs,Gerald J. Fishman,Charles A. Meegan,Kevin Hurley,Jefferson M. Kommers,Ian Smith,Dale A. Frail,Toshio Murakami +13 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reported the discovery of pulsations in the persistent X-ray flux of SGR1806-20, with a period of 7.47 s and a spindown rate of 2.6 x 10(exp -3) s/yr.