Related papers: The Magnetospheric Flare on Compact Magnetized Obj…
Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may be powered by the rotational energy of a millisecond magnetar. I argue that the GRB-driving magnetars lie at the high end of the distribution of magnetic field strengths of magnetars. The field of…
(Abridged) We propose that giant flares on Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters produce relativistic, strongly magnetized, weakly baryon loaded magnetic clouds, somewhat analogous to solar coronal mass ejection (CME) events. Flares are driven by…
Soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are mainly a Galactic population and originate from neutron stars with intense ($B\simeq 10^{15}{\rm \ G}$) magnetic fields ('magnetars'). Occasionally, a giant flare occurs with enormous intensity,…
Magnetars are slowly-rotating neutron stars with extremely strong magnetic fields that rarely produce extremely bright, energetic giant flares. Magnetar Giant Flares (MGFs) begin with a short (200 ms) intense flash, followed by fainter…
Magnetars, a population of isolated neutron stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields of $\sim 10^{14}-10^{15}$ G, have been increasingly accepted to explain a variety of astrophysical transients. A nascent millisecond-period magnetar can…
Millisecond pulsars with strong magnetic fields may be formed through several processes, e.g. accretion-induced collapse of magnetized white dwarfs, merger of two neutron stars. During the birth of such a pulsar, an initial fireball…
Giant flares, short explosive events releasing up to 10$^{47}$ erg of energy in the gamma-ray band in less than one second, are the most spectacular manifestation of magnetars, young neutron stars powered by a very strong magnetic field,…
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow emission is believed to be produced by synchrotron emission of electrons accelerated to high energy by a relativistic collisionless shock propagating into a weakly magnetized plasma. Afterglow observations…
Magnetars are slowly-rotating neutron stars with extremely strong magnetic fields ($10^{13-15}$ G), episodically emitting $\sim100$ ms long X-ray bursts with energies of $\sim10^{40-41}$ erg. Rarely, they produce extremely bright, energetic…
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…
Magnetars younger than one century are expected to be hyper active. Besides winds powered by rotation they generate frequent magnetic flares, which launch powerful blast waves into the wind. These internal shocks act as masers producing…
The gamma-ray burst (GRB) 060218 has ~ 10^5 times lower luminosity than typical long GRBs, and is associated with a supernova (SN). The radio afterglow displays no jet break, so that this burst might arise from a mildly-relativistic…
The majority of short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) are thought to originate from the merger of compact binary systems collapsing directly to form a black hole. However, it has been proposed that both SGRBs and long gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) may,…
GRB 160821B is a short gamma-ray burst (GRB) at redshift $z=0.16$, with a duration less than 1 second and without detection of any "extended emission" up to more than 100 seconds in both {\em Swift}/BAT and {\em Fermi}/GBM bands. An X-ray…
One of the most intriguing discoveries made by the Swift satellite is the flaring activity in about half of the afterglow lightcurves. Flares have been observed on both long and short duration GRBs and on time scales that range from minutes…
The postburst object of a GRB is likely to be a highly magnetized, rapidly rotating compact object (e.g., a millisecond magnetar), which could produce an ultrarelativistic electron-positron-pair wind. The interaction of such a wind with an…
We investigate a model for the shallow decay phases of Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) afterglows discovered by Swift/XRT in the first hours following a GRB event. In the context of the fireball scenario, we consider the possibility that long-lived…
Time-resolved spectra of six short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs), measured by the {\em Swift} telescope, are used to estimate the parameters of a plerion-like model of the X-ray afterglow. The unshrouded, optically thin component of the…
Ultra-long gamma-ray bursts (ULGRBs) are characterized by exceptionally long-duration central engine activities, with characteristic timescales exceeding 1000 seconds. We present ground-based optical afterglow observations of the ultra-long…
Soft-gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are galactic X-ray stars that emit numerous short-duration (about 0.1 s) bursts of hard X-rays during sporadic active periods. They are thought to be magnetars: strongly magnetized neutron stars with…