Unraveling the cooling trend of the Soft Gamma Repeater, SGR 1627-41

Abstract

SGR 1627-41 was discovered in 1998 after a single active episode which lasted \~6 weeks. We report here our monitoring results of the decay trend of the persistent X-ray luminosity of the source during the last 5 years. We find an initial temporal power law decay with index 0.47, reaching a plateau which is followed by a sharp (factor of ten) flux decline ~800 days after the source activation. The source spectrum is best described during the entire period by a single power law with high absorption (N_H=9.0(7)x10^(22) cm^(-2)); the spectral index, however, varies dramatically between 2.2-3.8 spanning the entire range for all known SGR sources. We discuss the cooling behavior of the neutron star assuming a deep crustal heating initiated by the burst activity of the source during 1998.

arXiv comment12 pages, 2 figures, published in ApJ Letters corrected first paragraph of introduction

References in corpus (6)

• Electrodynamics of Magnetars: Implications for the Persistent X-ray Emission and Spindown of the Soft Gamma Repeaters and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars
• Discovery of a New Soft Gamma Repeater, SGR 1627-41
• Evidence for a Sudden Magnetic Field Reconfiguration in SGR 1900+14
• Diagnosing magnetars with transient cooling
• The Distance to the Soft Gamma Repeater SGR 1627-41
• ASCA Observation of the quiescent X-ray counterpart to SGR1627-41

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