Related papers: High frequency oscillations during magnetar flares
We report an analysis of the archival Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) data from the December 2004 hyperflare from SGR 1806-20. In addition to the 90 Hz QPO first discovered by Israel et al., we report the detection of higher frequency…
In order to discern the physical nature of many gamma-ray sources in the sky, we must look not only in spectral and spatial dimensions, but also understand their temporal variability. However, timing analysis of sources with a highly…
I review the rotation measurements of accreting neutron stars. Many of the highly magnetic accreting X-ray pulsars have been continuously observed with the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma-Ray…
We advance a "Solar flare" model of magnetar activity, whereas a slow evolution of the magnetic field in the upper crust, driven by electron MHD (EMHD) flows, twists the external magnetic flux tubes, producing persistent emission, bursts…
The recent discovery of the "weak field, old magnetar", the soft gamma repeater SGR 0418+5729, whose dipole magnetic field is less than 7.5 \times 10^{12} G, has raised perplexing questions: How can the neutron star produce SGR-like bursts…
Magnetars are highly magnetized young neutron stars that occasionally produce enormous bursts and flares of X-rays and gamma-rays. Of the approximately thirty magnetars currently known in our Galaxy and Magellanic Clouds, five have…
Two giant flares were observed on 5 March 1979 and 27 August 1998 from the soft gamma-ray repeaters SGR 0526-66 and SGR 1900+14, respectively. The striking similarity between these remarkable bursts strongly implies a common nature. We show…
We report on the study of 14 XMM-Newton observations of the magnetar SGR 1806-20 spread over a period of 8 years, starting in 2003 and extending to 2011. We find that in mid 2005, a year and a half after a giant flare (GF), the torques on…
Giant flares on soft gamma-ray repeaters that are thought to take place on magnetars release enormous energy in a short time interval. Their power can be explained by catastrophic instabilities occurring in the magnetic field configuration…
On December 27, 2004, plasma particle detectors on the GEOTAIL spacecraft detected an extremely strong signal of hard X-ray photons from the giant flare of SGR1806-20, a magnetar candidate. While practically all gamma-ray detectors on any…
Fast radio bursts (FRB) are enigmatic powerful single radio pulses with durations of several milliseconds and high brightness temperatures suggesting coherent emission mechanism. For the time being a number of extragalactic FRBs have been…
We demonstrate that resonant shattering flares can occur during close passages of neutron stars in eccentric or hyperbolic encounters. We provide updated estimates for the rate of close encounters of compact objects in dense stellar…
This article is a review of Soft Gamma Repeaters and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars. It contains a brief historical record of the emergence of these classes of neutron stars, a thorough overview of the observational data, a succinct summary of the…
The dramatic discovery with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer satellite of remarkably coherent $\sim$300--1200 Hz oscillations in the X-ray brightness of some sixteen neutron stars in low-mass binary systems has spurred theoretical modeling…
Since the advent of powerful new X-ray observatories, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), the Italian - Dutch BeppoSAX mission, XMM-Newton and Chandra, a number of entirely new phenomena associated with thermonuclear burning on…
Glitches -- sudden increases in spin rate -- are observed in many pulsars. One mechanism advanced to explain glitches in the youngest pulsars is that they are caused by a starquake, a sudden rearrangement of the crust of the neutron star.…
The discovery of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in magnetar giant flares has opened up prospects for neutron star asteroseismology. The scarcity of giant flares makes a search for QPOs in the shorter, far more numerous bursts from Soft…
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) at cosmological distances have recently been discovered, whose duration is about milliseconds. We argue that the observed short duration is difficult to explain by giant flares of soft gamma-ray repeaters, though…
The origin of heavy elements synthesized through the rapid neutron capture process ($r$-process) has been an enduring mystery for over half a century. Cehula et al. (2024) recently showed that magnetar giant flares, among the brightest…
Gravitational, magnetic and superfluid forces can stress the crust of an evolving neutron star. Fracture of the crust under these stresses could affect the star's spin evolution and generate high-energy emission. We study the growth of…