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
Burst fluence distributions of soft gamma repeaters 1806–20 and 1900+14 in the rossi x-ray timing explorer pca era
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the fluence distributions of over 3040 bursts from SGR 1806-20 and over 1963 bursts from the SGR 1900+14 using the complete set of observations available from the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer/Proportional Counter Array through 2011 March.
Journal ArticleDOI
Magnetic fields in the nearby Universe, as observed in solar and planetary realms, stars, and interstellar starforming nurseries
TL;DR: A survey of planetary, stellar and clumpy interstellar magnetic fields, with an emphasis on discoveries made in the last decade, is presented in this paper, where the basic observational properties are summarized, and the best theoretical scenario which accounts for the large body of observations is discussed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Bayesian timing analysis of giant flare of SGR 180620 by RXTE PCA
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE/XTE) Proportional Counter Array (PCA) of a giant flare of SGR 1806−20 on 2004 Dec. 27 and applied an existing Bayesian periodicity detection method to search for oscillations of a transient nature.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Burst and Simultaneous Short-Term Pulsed Flux Enhancement from the Magnetar Candidate 1E 1048.1-5937
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report on the 2004 June 29 burst detected from the direction of the anomalous X-ray Pulsar (AXP) 1E 1048.1-5937 using the Rossi Xray Timing Explorer (RXTE).
Journal ArticleDOI
High-speed Imaging and Wavefront Sensing with an Infrared Avalanche Photodiode Array
Christoph Baranec,Dani Atkinson,Reed Riddle,Donald N. B. Hall,Shane Jacobson,Nicholas M. Law,Mark Chun +6 more
TL;DR: In this paper, an early engineering-grade infrared avalanche photodiode (APD) array was used to achieve a correlated double sampling read noise of 0.73 e− in the lab, and a total noise of 2.52 e− on sky.
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.