Related papers: Magnetars: Structure and evolution from p-star mod…
Magnetars comprise two classes of rotating neutron stars (Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs) and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars), whose X-ray emission is powered by an ultrastrong magnetic field, B ~ 10^15 G. Occasionally SGRs enter into active episodes…
Neutron star-neutron star mergers are known to be associated with short gamma-ray bursts. If the neutron star equation of state is sufficiently stiff, at least some of such mergers will leave behind a supramassive or even a stable neutron…
(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…
The extraordinary energetic activity of magnetars is usually explained in terms of dissipation of a huge internal magnetic field of the order of $10^{15-16}$G. How such a strong magnetic field can originate during the formation of a neutron…
Ultramagnetized neutron stars or magnetars have been invoked to explain several astrophysical phenomena. We examine how the magnetic field of a magnetar will decay over time and how this decay affects the cooling of the object. We find that…
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…
Recently, neutron stars with very strong surface magnetic fields have been suggested as the site for the origin of observed soft gamma repeaters (SGRs). We investigate the influence of a strong magnetic field on the properties and internal…
Non-accreting neutron stars display diverse characteristics, leading us to classify them into several groups. This chapter is an observational driven review in which we survey the properties of the different classes of isolated neutron…
The prevailing view that magnetars' X-ray luminosities exceed their spin-down luminosities is based on the assumption that the decay with distance of the flux of the X-rays received from magnetars obeys the inverse-square law. The results…
Ap/Bp stars are magnetic chemically peculiar early A and late B type stars of the main sequence. They exhibit peculiar surface abundance anomalies that are thought to be the result of gravitational settling and radiative levitation. The…
Anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) and soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are believed to be manifestations of magnetars. Typically, AXPs exhibit higher X-ray luminosities, whereas SGRs are generally fainter and display significantly high…
A relativistic degenerate neutron gas in equilibrium with a background of electrons and protons in a magnetic field exerts its pressure anisotropically, having a smaller value perpendicular than along the magnetic field. For critical fields…
I consider the state of play regarding associations of supernova remnants (SNRs) with anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) and soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs). The three AXP/SNR associations are convincing, and are consistent with AXPs being…
In the last few years it has been recognized that two apparently distinct classes of peculiar high-energy sources are actually related and can be explained as young neutron stars with magnetic fields as high as 10e14 - 10e15 Gauss. One of…
Weakly magnetized neutron stars in X-ray binaries show complex phenomenology with several spectral components that can be associated with the accretion disk, boundary and/or spreading layer, a corona, and a wind. Spectroscopic information…
Three high-mass X-ray binaries have been discovered recently exhibiting enormous spinup rates. Conventional accretion theory predicts extremely high surface dipolar magnetic fields that we believe are unphysical. Instead, we propose quite…
Extended emission gamma-ray bursts are a subset of the `short' class of burst which exhibit an early time rebrightening of gamma emission in their light curves. This extended emission arises just after the initial emission spike, and can…
Neutron stars are among the most fascinating astrophysical sources, being characterized by strong gravity, densities about the nuclear one or even above, and huge magnetic fields. Their observational signatures can be extremely diverse…
Bursts from soft gamma repeaters have been shown to be super-Eddington by a factor of 1000 and have been persuasively associated with compact objects. Here, a model of super-Eddington radiation transfer on the surface of a strongly magnetic…
We study equilibrium magnetic field configurations in a neutron star (NS) whose core has type-II superconducting protons. Unlike the equations for normal matter, which feature no special field strength, those for superconductors contain the…