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An expanding radio nebula produced by a giant flare from the magnetar SGR 1806–20
Open accessAbstract
Soft γ-ray repeaters (SGRs) are ‘magnetars’, a small class of slowly spinning neutron stars with extreme surface magnetic fields, B ≈ 1015 gauss (refs 1 , 2 –3). On 27 December 2004, a giant flare was detected from the magnetar SGR 1806 - 20 (ref. 2), only the third such event recorded. This burst of energy was detected by a variety of instruments and even caused an ionospheric disturbance in the Earth's upper atmosphere that was 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 of the speed of light. To create this nebula, at least 4 × 1043 ergs of energy must have been emitted by the giant flare in the form of magnetic fields and relativistic particles.
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Cited by
Physics of strongly magnetized neutron stars
Harding, A. K., & Lai, D. (2006) · Reports on Progress in Physics · doi:10.1088/0034-4885/69/9/r03 · Cited by 823
The strongest cosmic magnets: soft gamma-ray repeaters and anomalous X-ray pulsars
Mereghetti, S. (2008) · The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review · doi:10.1007/s00159-008-0011-z · Cited by 673
Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era
Gehrels, N., Ramirez-Ruiz, E., & Fox, D. B. (2009) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev.astro.46.060407.145147 · Cited by 615
Self-citationA giant γ-ray flare from the magnetar SGR 1806–20
Palmer, D. M., Barthelmy, S., Gehrels, N., Kippen, R. M., Cayton, T., Kouveliotou, C., Eichler, D., Wijers, R. A. M. J., Woods, P. M., Granot, J., et al. (2005) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature03525 · Cited by 536
Self-citationMagnetars: the physics behind observations. A review
Turolla, R., Zane, S., & Watts, A. L. (2015) · Reports on Progress in Physics · doi:10.1088/0034-4885/78/11/116901 · Cited by 447
Metadata
- Authors
- Gaensler, B. M., Kouveliotou, C., Gelfand, J. D., Taylor, G. B., Eichler, D., Wijers, R. A. M. J., Granot, J., Ramirez-Ruiz, E., Lyubarsky, Y. E., Hunstead, R. W., Campbell-Wilson, D., van der Horst, A. J., McLaughlin, M. A., Fender, R. P., Garrett, M. A., Newton-McGee, K. J., Palmer, D. M., Gehrels, N., & Woods, P. M.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2005-04
- Volume
- 434
- Issue
- 7037
- Pages
- 1104-1106
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2124648171
- Cited by
- 189
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 13.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- The paper
- Gaensler, B. M., Kouveliotou, C., Gelfand, J. D., Taylor, G. B., Eichler, D., Wijers, R. A. M. J., Granot, J., Ramirez-Ruiz, E., Lyubarsky, Y. E., Hunstead, R. W., Campbell-Wilson, D., van der Horst, A. J., McLaughlin, M. A., Fender, R. P., Garrett, M. A., Newton-McGee, K. J., Palmer, D. M., Gehrels, N., & Woods, P. M. (2005). An expanding radio nebula produced by a giant flare from the magnetar SGR 1806–20. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03498
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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