Soft gamma repeaters and anomalous X-ray pulsars: magnetar candidates
By P. Woods, C. Thompson. 2004
340 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Introduction Baade and Zwicky (1934) were the first to envision the formation of neutron stars as the end product of a supernova explosion. Their forward thinking was not vindicated for another three decades, with the discovery of the first radio pulsars by Bell and Hewish (Hewish et al. 1968). What Baade and Zwiscky could not have anticipated, however, was the menagerie of astrophysical objects that are now associated with neutron stars. Today, we observe them as magnetically braking pulsars, accreting pulsars in binary systems, isolated cooling blackbodies, sources of astrophysical jets, and emitters of high-luminosity bursts of X-rays. Here, we focus on two of the most extraordinary evolutionary paths of a neutron star, namely soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs). Soft gamma repeaters were discovered as high-energy transient burst sources; some were later found also to be persistent X-ray pulsars, with periods of several seconds, that are spinning down rapidly. Anomalous X-ray pulsars are identified through their persistent pulsations and rapid spin down; some have also been found to emit SGR-like bursts. In spite of the differing methods of discovery, this convergence in the observed properties of the SGRs and AXPs has made it clear that they are, fundamentally, the same type of object. What distinguishes them from other neutron stars is the likely source of energy for their radiative emissions, magnetism.
Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Astronomy and Astrophysics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b8b52fa8b0dbf3b1d4bc2804c674566c98036ddd
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Citations in the corpus
- SUPERNOVA LIGHT CURVES POWERED BY YOUNG MAGNETARS (2009, background): “Studies of soft gamma-ray repeaters and anomalous X-ray pulsars reveal that ∼ 10% of newly born neutron stars (Kouveliotou et al. 1998) have dipole magnetic fields as high as B ∼ 1014 − 1015 G for more than 1000 years after their birth (see Woods & Thompson 2006).”
- Explosion mechanism, neutrino burst and gravitational wave in core-collapse supernovae (2005, background): “Some of them are soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) and others are anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) or high magnetic field radio pulsars (HBPs) [408, 135], which are collectively referred to as “magnetars” [102] (see Figure 106 and [398] for review of the current observations).”
- The Proto-Magnetar Model for Gamma-Ray Bursts (2010, background): “Slower rotation, corresponding to a choked jet, may be likely in the majority of cases because Galactic magnetars are formed in ∼ 10% of core collapse SN (Woods & Thompson 2006), yet only a small fraction of envelope-stripped SN are accompanied by relativistic ejecta (Soderberg et al. 2006).”
- NuSTAR DISCOVERY OF A 3.76 s TRANSIENT MAGNETAR NEAR SAGITTARIUS A* (2013, background): “With the currently known objects numbering only two dozens,11 and with this group exhibiting a wide variety of interesting, often dramatic phenomena (Woods & Thompson 2006; Mereghetti 2013), the physics of magnetars is still poorly understood.”
- UNTWISTING MAGNETOSPHERES OF NEUTRON STARS (2008, background): “In particular, neutron stars with ultrastrong fields B >∼ 1014 G (magnetars) are inferred to have dynamic magnetospheres (see e.g. reviews by Woods & Thompson 2006; Kaspi 2007; Mereghetti 2008).”
- Are There Magnetars in High-Mass X-Ray Binaries? The Case of Supergiant Fast X-Ray Transients (2008, background): “Presently known magnetar candidates (soft gamma repeaters, SGR, and anomalous X-ray pulsars, AXP) have estimated ages in the 104-105 yr range (for a review see e.g. Woods & Thompson 2006).”