Swift observations of two outbursts from the magnetar 4U 0142+61

Abstract

4U 0142+61 is one of a small class of persistently bright magnetars. Here we report on a monitoring campaign of 4U 0142+61 from 2011 July 26 - 2016 June 12 using the Swift X-ray Telescope, continuing a 16 year timing campaign with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. We show that 4U 0142+61 had two radiatively loud timing events, on 2011 July 29 and 2015 February 28, both with short soft gamma-ray bursts, and a long-lived flux decay associated with each case. We show that the 2015 timing event resulted in a net spin-down of the pulsar due to over-recovery of a glitch. We compare this timing event to previous such events in other high-magnetic-field pulsars, and discuss net spin-down glitches now seen in several young, high-B pulsars.

9 pages, 5 figures, Submitted to ApJ

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• Discovery of the first anti-glitch event in the rotation-powered pulsar PSR B0540-69
• A magnetic white-dwarf accretion model for the anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61
• Magnetar outburst and spin-down glitch
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