Related papers: A Photon Splitting Cascade Model of Soft Gamma-Ray…
Hard X-rays above 10 keV are detected from several anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) and soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs), and different models have been proposed to explain the physical origin within the frame of either magnetar model or…
Recent observations of giant flares from soft gamma-ray repeaters have exhibited multiple 25-150 Hz oscillations. Frequencies in this range are expected for toroidal shear waves in a neutron star (NS) crust, lending support to Duncan's…
Calculations of reaction rates for the third-order QED process of photon splitting in strong magnetic fields traditionally have employed either the effective Lagrangian method or variants of Schwinger's proper-time technique. Recently,…
Simple hardness ratios are found to be a good estimator for the spectral peak energy in Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). Specifically, a high correlation strength is found between the $\nu F_{\nu}$ peak in the spectrum of BATSE GRBs, $\epo$, and…
After nearly a decade of quiescence, the soft gamma-ray repeater SGR 1627-41 reactivated on 2008 May 28 with a bursting episode followed by a slowly decaying enhancement of its persistent emission. To search for the still unknown spin…
(Abridged) We present a systematic fit of a model of resonant cyclotron scattering (RCS) to the X-ray data of ten magnetars, including canonical and transient anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs), and soft gamma repeaters (SGRs). In this…
We compute Fourier-resolved X-ray spectra of the Seyfert 1 Markarian 766 to study the shape of the variable components contributing to the 0.3-10 keV energy spectrum and their time-scale dependence. The fractional variability spectra peak…
The process of photon splitting $\gamma \to \gamma \gamma$ in a strong magnetic field is investigated both below and above the pair creation threshold. Contrary to the statement by Baier et al., the ``allowed'' channel $\alw$ is shown not…
Unsteady activity of gamma-ray burst sources leads to internal shocks in their emergent relativistic wind. We study the emission spectra from such shocks, assuming that they produce a power-law distribution of relativistic electrons and…
A large fraction of gamma-ray burst (GRB) spectra are very hard below the peak. Indeed, the observed distribution of sub-peak power-law indices, $\alpha$, has been used as an argument for a photospheric origin of GRB spectra. Here, we…
The distribution of GRB durations is bimodal, but there is little additional evidence to support the division of GRBs into short and long classes. Based on simple hardness ratios, several studies have shown a tendency for longer GRBs to…
(ABBREVIATED) We consider the structure of neutron star magnetospheres threaded by large-scale electrical currents, and the effect of resonant Compton scattering by the charge carriers (both electrons and ions) on the emergent X-ray spectra…
A detection technique for ultra-high energy cosmic rays, complementary to the fluorescence technique, would be the use of the molecular Bremsstrahlung radiation emitted by low-energy ionization electrons left after the passage of the…
We present the results of 2.5 years AGILE observations of PSR B1509-58. The modulation significance of the light-curve above 30 MeV is at a sigma confidence level and the light-curve is similar to those found earlier up to 30 MeV by \comp:…
Within the magnetar scenario, the "twisted magnetosphere" model appears very promising in explaining the persistent X-ray emission from the Soft Gamma Repeaters and the Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (SGRs and AXPs). In the first two papers of the…
We present the results of the spectral analysis of a sample of short bright $\gamma$--ray bursts (GRB) detected by BATSE and compare them with the average and time resolved spectral properties of long bright bursts. While the spectral…
Soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) and Anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) are generally accepted to be magnetars. Recently, Zhang, Xu & Qiao (2000, ApJ, 545, L127) proposed an alternative viewpoint about the nature of the SGRs (and AXPs). In this…
Very-high-energy (VHE, E \gtrsim 100 GeV) gamma rays emitted by extragalactic sources, such as blazars, initiate electromagnetic cascades in the intergalactic medium. The cascade photons arrive at the earth with angular and temporal…
We have monitored the pulse frequencies of the two soft gamma repeaters SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14 through the beginning of year 2001 using primarily Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array observations. In both sources, we…
It is well known that, for bright gamma-ray pulsars with high statistics above a few GeV, the phase averaged spectral energy distribution (SED) is harder than a simple exponential cutoff above the break. We perform phase-resolved spectral…