An energetic blast wave from the December 27 giant flare of the soft gamma-ray repeater 1806-20

Details An energetic blast wave from the December 27 giant flare of the soft gamma-ray repeater 1806-20 An energetic blast wave from the December 27 giant flare of the soft gamma-ray repeater 1806-20

2005-02-04

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0502085v2

Astrophys.J. 623 (2005) L29-L32

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Updated version, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

Scientific paper

10.1086/429997

Recent follow-up observations of the December 27 giant flare of SGR 1806-20 have detected a multiple-frequency radio afterglow from 240 MHz to 8.46 GHz, extending in time from a week to about a month after the flare. The angular size of the source was also measured for the first time. Here we show that this radio afterglow gives the first piece of clear evidence that an energetic blast wave sweeps up its surrounding medium and produces a synchrotron afterglow, the same mechanism as established for gamma-ray burst afterglows. The optical afterglow is expected to be intrinsically as bright as $m_R\simeq13$ at $t\la 0.1$ days after the flare, but very heavy extinction makes the detection difficult because of the low galactic latitude of the source. Rapid infrared follow-up observations to giant flares are therefore crucial for the low-latitude SGRs, while for high-latitude SGRs (e.g. SGR 0526-66), rapid follow-ups should result in identification of their possible optical afterglows. Rapid multi-wavelength follow-ups will also provide more detailed information of the early evolution of a fireball as well as its composition.

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