High frequency oscillations during magnetar flares

Abstract

The recent discovery of high frequency oscillations during giant flares from the Soft Gamma Repeaters SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14 may be the first direct detection of vibrations in a neutron star crust. If this interpretation is correct it offers a novel means of testing the neutron star equation of state, crustal breaking strain, and magnetic field configuration. We review the observational data on the magnetar oscillations, including new timing analysis of the SGR 1806-20 giant flare using data from the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) and the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). We discuss the implications for the study of neutron star structure and crust thickness, and outline areas for future investigation.

5 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the proceedings of the conference "Isolated Neutron Stars: from the Interior to the Surface" (April 2006, London), eds. D. Page, R. Turolla, & S. Zane, Astrophysics & Space Science in press

References in corpus (14)

• Neutron Star Structure and the Equation of State
• Gamma-Ray Observations of a Giant Flare from The Magnetar SGR 1806-20
• A giant, periodic flare from the soft gamma repeater SGR1900+14
• Discovery of Rapid X-ray Oscillations in the Tail of the SGR 1806-20 Hyperflare
• The Giant Flare of 1998 August 27 from SGR 1900+14: II. Radiative Mechanism and Physical Constraints on the Source
• Discovery of Fast X-ray Oscillations During the 1998 Giant Flare from SGR 1900+14
• Global Seismic Oscillations in Soft Gamma Repeaters
• The 2004 Hyperflare from SGR 1806-20: Further Evidence for Global Torsional Vibrations
• Detection with RHESSI of high frequency X-ray oscillations in the tail of the 2004 hyperflare from SGR 1806-20
• QPOs during magnetar flares are not driven by mechanical normal modes of the crust
• Shear Waves and Giant Flare Oscillations from Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters
• Large Torque Variations in Two Soft Gamma Repeaters
• The gamma-ray giant flare from SGR1806-20: Evidence for crustal cracking via initial timescales
• Torsional Oscillations of Magnetized Relativistic Stars

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Color superconductivity in dense quark matter
• Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology with Gravitational Waves
• Impact of the symmetry energy on the outer crust of non-accreting neutron stars
• The dynamics of pulsar glitches: Contrasting phenomenology with numerical evolutions
• The relativistic entrainment matrix of a superfluid nucleon-hyperon mixture at zero temperature
• Crustal Oscillations of Slowly Rotating Relativistic Stars
• Bayesian timing analysis of giant flare of SGR 1806-20 by RXTE PCA
• Oscillations of superfluid hyperon stars: decoupling scheme and g-modes
• Electromagnetic fields in the exterior of an oscillating relativistic star -- II. Electromagnetic damping
• Strongly magnetized pulsars: explosive events and evolution
• Hydrodynamics of rapidly rotating superfluid neutron stars with mutual friction
• Torsional shear oscillations in the neutron star crust driven by restoring force of elastic stresses
• Modelling the dynamics of superfluid neutron stars
• Lower Bound on the Magnetic Field Strength of a Magnetar from Analysis of SGR Giant Flares
• Plasma Magnetosphere Formation Around Oscillating Magnetized Neutron Stars
• Fourier Domain
• X-ray emission from magnetic dissipation in the magnetar magnetosphere
• Landau parameters and entrainment matrix of cold stellar matter: effect of the symmetry energy and strong magnetic fields