Related papers: INTEGRAL and Magnetars

Observations at near and mid-infrared wavelengths (1-18 micron) of SGR 1806-20 suggest that it is associated with a cluster of giant massive stars which are enshrouded in a dense cloud of dust. The centre of the best sky position of the…

On 2004 December 27, a highly-energetic giant flare was recorded from the magnetar candidate SGR 1806-20. In the months preceding this flare, the persistent X-ray emission from this object began to undergo significant changes. Here, we…

We have performed observations of the blazar S5 0716+714 with INTEGRAL on 2-6 April 2004. In the first months of 2004, the source had increased steadily in optical brightness and had undergone two outbursts. During the latter, occurred in…

The soft gamma repeater SGR 1806-20 is most famous for its giant flare from 2004, which yielded the highest gamma-ray flux ever observed on Earth. The flare emphasized the importance of determining the distance to the SGR, thus revealing…

Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs) are a class of rare, high-energy galactic transients that have episodes of short (~0.1 sec), soft (~30 keV), intense (~100 Crab), gamma-ray bursts. We report an analysis of the x-ray emission from 95 SGR1806-20…

Details of the discovery of a new X-ray source, IGR J18462-0223, on October 12, 2007, during a short (several hours), intense (~ 35 mCrab at the peak) outburst of hard radiation by the IBIS/ISGRI gamma-ray telescope onboard the INTEGRAL…

Four Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs) have now been identified with certainty, and a fifth has possibly been detected. I will review their X-ray and gamma-ray properties in both outburst and quiescence. The magnetar model accounts fairly well…

Recent observations with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) of two anomalous X-ray pulsars provided evidence that X-ray emission from magnetar sources is strongly polarized. Here we report on the joint IXPE and XMM-Newton…

We study the temporal and coarse spectral properties of 268 bursts from SGR 1806-20 and 679 bursts from SGR 1900+14, all observed with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer/Proportional Counter Array. Hardness ratios and temporal parameters, such…

After more than 5.5 years of in flight lifetime, the ESA space observatory INTEGRAL is depicting a new scenario in the soft gamma Ray domain. With the observation and discovery of more than 400 hard X-Ray sources has changed our view of a…

On January 6th 2004, the IBAS burst alert system triggered the 8th gamma-ray burst (GRB) to be located by the INTEGRAL satellite. The position was determined and publicly distributed within 12s, prompting ESA's XMM-Newton to execute a ToO…

Since its launch INTEGRAL has devoted a significant fraction of its observing time to the Galactic plane region. We present the results of INTEGRAL observations of the inner spiral arms of the Galaxy (Norma, Scutum and Sagittarius) with…

Since the launch of INTEGRAL in 2002, about 300 new sources have been discovered. Understanding the nature of these objects is of prime importance for many aspects of astrophysics, such as the evolution of stars, population of sources…

On 2009 June 5, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope triggered on two short, and relatively dim bursts with spectral properties similar to Soft Gamma Repeater (SGR) bursts. Independent localizations…

We present results on the Soft Gamma Repeater (SGR) 0501+4516, discovered by the SWIFT Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on 2008 August 22. More than 50 bursts were identified from this source, out of which 18 bursts had enough counts to carry…

We report on the results of observations of hard X-ray sources in the Galactic plane with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The hard X-ray IGR sources were discovered by the INTEGRAL satellite, and the goals of the Chandra observations are to…

The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), launched in 2002, continues its successful work in observing the sky at energies E>20 keV. The legacy of the mission already includes a large number of discovered or previously…

The giant flare observed on Dec. 27th 2004 from SGR 1806-20 has revived the idea that a fraction of short (<2 s) Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) is due to giant flares from Soft Gamma Ray Repeaters located in nearby galaxies. One of the…

On 2004 Dec. 27, the soft gamma repeater (SGR) 1806-20 emitted the brightest giant flare (GF) ever detected from an SGR, with an (isotropic) energy release $\sim 100$ times greater than the only two other known SGR GFs. It was followed by a…

GRB041219a is the brightest burst localised by INTEGRAL. The intense burst occurred about ~250s after the precursor and the long delay enabled optical and near infrared telescopes to observe the prompt emission. We present comprehensive…