Changes in the X-ray Emission from the Magnetar Candidate 1E 2259+586 during its 2002 Outburst

Details Changes in the X-ray Emission from the Magnetar Candidate 1E 2259+586 during its 2002 Outburst Changes in the X-ray Emission from the Magnetar Candidate 1E 2259+586 during its 2002 Outburst

Jul 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004aipc..714..298w&link_type=abstract

X-RAY TIMING 2003: Rossie and Beyond. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 714, pp. 298-301 (2004).

Other

1

Pulsars, X-Ray, X-Ray Sources, X-Ray Bursts

Scientific paper

An outburst of several tens of SGR-like bursts was detected from the Anomalous X-ray Pulsar (AXP) 1E 2259+586 in 2002 June. Coincident with this burst activity were gross changes in the pulsed flux, persistent flux, energy spectrum, pulse profile and spin down of the underlying X-ray source. We present RXTE and XMM-Newton observations of 1E 2259+586 that show the evolution of the aforementioned source parameters during and following this episode and identify recovery time scales for each. Specifically, we observe an X-ray flux increase (pulsed and phase-averaged) by more than an order of magnitude having two distinct components. The first component is linked to the burst activity and decays within ~2 days during which the energy spectrum hardens considerably relative to the quiescent state of the source. The second component decays over the year following the glitch/outburst according to a power law in time with an exponent -0.22. The pulsed fraction decreased initially to ~15% RMS, but recovered rapidly to the pre-outburst level of ~23% within the first three days. The pulse profile changed significantly during the outburst, and recovered almost fully within two months of the outburst. A glitch of size Δvmax/v = (4.24+/-0.11) × 10-6 was observed in 1E 2259+586 that preceded the onset of the observed burst activity. The glitch could not be well fit with a simple partial exponential recovery. An additional exponential rise in frequency with a time scale of 15 days resulted in a significantly better fit to the data, however, a systematic drift in the phase of the pulse profile cannot be excluded as the cause for the apparent slow rise in frequency. The changes in the source properties of 1E 2259+586 during its 2002 outburst are shown to be qualitatively similar to changes seen during/following burst activity in two Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs), thus further solidifying the common nature of SGRs and AXPs as magnetars. Finally, the changes in persistent emission properties coincident with burst activity in 1E 2259+586 enabled us to infer previous burst active episodes from this and other AXPs. The non-detection of these outbursts by all-sky gamma-ray instruments suggests that the number of active magnetar candidates in our Galaxy is larger than previously thought.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Changes in the X-ray Emission from the Magnetar Candidate 1E 2259+586 during its 2002 Outburst does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Changes in the X-ray Emission from the Magnetar Candidate 1E 2259+586 during its 2002 Outburst, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Changes in the X-ray Emission from the Magnetar Candidate 1E 2259+586 during its 2002 Outburst will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1075296