From Rare Events to a Population: Discovering Overlooked Extragalactic Magnetar Giant Flare Candidates in Archival Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor Data

Abstract

Magnetar giant flares (MGFs) are rare, extremely bright bursts of gamma-rays from highly magnetized neutron stars. These events are challenging to identify because, at extragalactic distances, they can appear similar to other astrophysical phenomena. Only a handful have been confidently identified to date, limiting our understanding of their origin and physical properties. This study focuses on expanding the sample of known events and enabling a more detailed characterization of their observational features and intrinsic properties, while introducing significant improvements in the methods used to identify and analyze them. When applied to archival data from the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) on the \Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, this approach added four previously unidentified events the known sample, expanding the total to 13 MGFs. This demonstrates both the effectiveness of the method and the likelihood that additional MGFs remain hidden in existing gamma-ray burst catalogs. We utilize this expanded sample to gain a deeper understanding of the broader population of MGFs. We develop a statistical modeling framework that combines previously considered data with modern observations from Fermi/GBM. The model accounts for instrumental sensitivity and the expected diversity in event characteristics. We infer a volumetric rate of events above $1.2\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}$ of $R_{MGF}=5.5_{-2.7}^{+4.5}\times 10^5\mathrm{Gp}{\mathrm{c}}^{-3}\mathrm{y}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}$. The results show that individual magnetars must produce multiple flares throughout their lifetimes, reinforcing the idea that these are recurring phenomena rather than singular explosive events. Expanding the sample of known MGFs improves our understanding of magnetars and their role in other astrophysical phenomena, including possible links to fast radio bursts, gravitational waves, and the creation of heavy elements in extreme astrophysical environments.

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