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An exceptionally bright flare from SGR1806-20 and the origins of short-duration gamma-ray bursts

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arxiv astro-ph/0502329 v2 pith:CBWFJM6D submitted 2005-02-16 astro-ph

An exceptionally bright flare from SGR1806-20 and the origins of short-duration gamma-ray bursts

K. Hurley , S.E. Boggs , D. M. Smith , R.C. Duncan , R. Lin , A. Zoglauer , S. Krucker , G. Hurford
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H. Hudson C. Wigger W. Hajdas C. Thompson I. Mitrofanov A. Sanin W. Boynton C. Fellows A. von Kienlin G. Lichti A. Rau T. Cline
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classification astro-ph
keywords short-durationburstsflaregamma-raymagneticenergyeventmagnetars
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Soft-gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are galactic X-ray stars that emit numerous short-duration (about 0.1 s) bursts of hard X-rays during sporadic active periods. They are thought to be magnetars: strongly magnetized neutron stars with emissions powered by the dissipation of magnetic energy. Here we report the detection of a long (380 s) giant flare from SGR 1806-20, which was much more luminous than any previous transient event observed in our Galaxy. (In the first 0.2 s, the flare released as much energy as the Sun radiates in a quarter of a million years.) Its power can be explained by a catastrophic instability involving global crust failure and magnetic reconnection on a magnetar, with possible large-scale untwisting of magnetic field lines outside the star. From a great distance this event would appear to be a short-duration, hard-spectrum cosmic gamma-ray burst. At least a significant fraction of the mysterious short-duration gamma-ray bursts therefore may come from extragalactic magnetars.

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Cited by 5 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. MeV Gamma-Ray Lines from Radioactive Nuclei in Magnetar Giant Flares

    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Simulations show magnetar giant flares produce nuclei near r-process peaks whose decays create bright MeV gamma-ray lines from 88Kr and 92Sr with fluxes above 10^-8 erg cm^-2 s^-1.

  2. Multiwavelength study of non-thermal emission in the Swift J1834.9-0846/W41 region

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 5.0

    Modeling favors a lepto-hadronic supernova remnant for the extended TeV emission from HESS J1834-087 plus a leptonic magnetar wind nebula for the central point-like source, with an implied magnetar birth spin period b...

  3. A Log-Uniform Initial Magnetic Field Distribution Explains Pulsar and Magnetar Populations through Magnetic Inclination Alignment

    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    Magnetic inclination alignment with timescale proportional to B to the minus two suppresses observed numbers of strong-field neutron stars, unifying pulsars and magnetars under one log-uniform initial B distribution.

  4. Non-thermal emission from the vicinity of the magnetar CXOU J171405.7-381031

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 4.0

    Both leptonic and lepto-hadronic models fit the CTB 37B gamma-ray spectrum; neutral-pion decay matches above ~10 TeV but needs ~10^51 erg in protons unless the remnant hits dense gas.

  5. Constraining leptonic and hadronic gamma-ray emission from HESS J1825-137 and its environment

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    Multi-telescope spectral modeling of HESS J1825-137 using Naima and MCMC shows leptonic dominance for existing GeV-TeV data but lepto-hadronic preference when adding simulated CTAO or LHAASO UHE points.