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The strongest cosmic magnets: soft gamma-ray repeaters and anomalous X-ray pulsars

Sandro Mereghetti
- 08 Jul 2008 - 
- Vol. 15, Iss: 4, pp 225-287
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.

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Citations
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Evidence for a 36 ks phase modulation in the hard X-ray pulses from the magnetar 1E 1547.0−5408

TL;DR: In this article, the 2.07 s pulsation of the 15-40 keV emission detected with the HXD was found to be phase modulated, with a period of 36.0 −2.5 ks and an amplitude of 0.52± 0.14 s.
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XMM–Newton and Swift observations prove GRB 090709A to be a distant, standard, long GRB

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors obtained a target of opportunity observation with XMM-Newton and X-ray spectroscopy, which allowed them to model the significant excess in photoelectric absorption with respect to the Galactic value as due to a large column density in the GRB host, located at z ~ 4.2.
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Searching for x-ray variability in the glitching anomalous x-ray pulsar 1e 1841–045 in kes 73

TL;DR: In this paper, an analysis of archival X-ray data from the AXP 1E 1841-045, obtained between 1993 and 2007, has been carried out to find no evidence for glitch-correlated flux changes from this source after 1999, supporting the existence of radiatively silent glitches in AXPs.
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Axisymmetric force-free magnetosphere in the exterior of a neutron star

TL;DR: In this paper, the axisymmetric solutions for the force-free field with a power-law current model are calculated by taking into account general relativistic effects, and it is shown how the magnetic energy and helicity are accumulated along a sequence of equilibria.
Journal ArticleDOI

The $$SO(3,1) \times U(1)$$-gauge invariant approach to charged bosons in relativistic magnetars

TL;DR: In this paper, a perturbative method was used to investigate solutions of the Klein-Gordon equations for a charged massive field in the background of a magnetar, both in the interior solution and outside the star, where the variables can be separated and the wave function is expressed in terms of the Heun's general or confluent functions.
References
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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. 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.
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