Physics
Scientific paper
Nov 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aps..ses..eb01t&link_type=abstract
American Physical Society, Southeastern Section Meeting, November 13-15, 1998 Miami, Florida, abstract #EB.01
Physics
Scientific paper
The soft gamma repeaters are a peculliar group of transient sources, distinguished from the more common `classical' gamma ray bursters by their multiple repititions, and by their relatively soft spectral energy distributions. One SGR in the Large Magellanic Cloud (a satellite system of our Galaxy) emitted the brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected, on March 5, 1979. At its peak, this burst outshone a more typical X-ray flash (powered by thermonuclear burning) by almost ten million. A preponderance of evidence suggests that Soft Gamma Repeaters are young neutron stars possessing magnetic fields 10-100 times the QED strength. The associated stresses are sufficient to fracture the outer rigid crust of the neutron star, and to induce a steady X-ray glow from its surface. In distinction with ordinary radio pulsars, the magnetic field itself -- rather than the rotation -- is the dominant source of free energy. Recent observations have confirmed a prediction of this model, that the SGR sources are slowly rotating (by the standards of young neutron stars) and that their spin periods are increasing rapidly. I will outline how quantum electrodynamic effects modify the emergent X-ray spectrum, how measurements of the spin evolution of an SGR can be used to probe its superfluid interior, and how measurements of post-burst afterglow from the heated neutron star provide a direct diagnostic of the magnetic field.
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