An expanding radio nebula produced by a giant flare from the magnetar SGR 1806-20

Details An expanding radio nebula produced by a giant flare from the magnetar SGR 1806-20 An expanding radio nebula produced by a giant flare from the magnetar SGR 1806-20

2005-02-20

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0502393v2

Nature 434 (2005) 1104-1106

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

13 pages, including 2 colour & 1 b/w figures, and supplementary methods. Uses nature.sty. Nature, in press (submitted 18 Jan 2

Scientific paper

10.1038/nature03498

Soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) are "magnetars", a small class of slowly spinning neutron stars with extreme surface magnetic fields, ~10^15 gauss. On 2004 December 27, a giant flare was detected from the magnetar SGR 1806-20, the third such event ever recorded. This burst of energy was detected by a variety of instruments and even caused an ionospheric disturbance in the Earth's upper atmosphere recorded around the globe. Here we report the detection of a fading radio afterglow produced by this outburst, with a luminosity 500 times larger than the only other detection of a similar source. From day 6 to day 19 after the flare from SGR 1806-20, a resolved, linearly polarized, radio nebula was seen, expanding at approximately a quarter the speed of light. To create this nebula, at least 4x10^43 ergs of energy must have been emitted by the giant flare in the form of magnetic fields and relativistic particles. The combination of spatially resolved structure and rapid time evolution allows a study in unprecedented detail of a nearby analog to supernovae and gamma-ray bursts.

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