A bright γ-ray flare interpreted as a giant magnetar flare in NGC 253

D Svinkin¹, D Frederiks², K Hurley³, R Aptekar², S Golenetskii², A Lysenko², A V Ridnaia², A Tsvetkova², M Ulanov², T L Cline⁴, I Mitrofanov⁵, D Golovin⁵, A Kozyrev⁵, M Litvak⁵, A Sanin⁵, A Goldstein⁶, M S Briggs⁷, C Wilson-Hodge⁸, A von Kienlin⁹, X-L Zhang⁹, A Rau⁹, V Savchenko¹⁰, E Bozzo¹⁰, C Ferrigno¹⁰, P Ubertini¹¹, A Bazzano¹¹, J C Rodi¹¹, S Barthelmy⁴, J Cummings¹², H Krimm¹³, D M Palmer¹⁴, W Boynton¹⁵, C W Fellows¹⁵, K P Harshman¹⁵, H Enos¹⁵, R Starr¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ Ioffe Institute, St Petersburg, Russia. svinkin@mail.ioffe.ru.
² Ioffe Institute, St Petersburg, Russia.
³ Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁴ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.
⁵ Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia.
⁶ Science and Technology Institute, Universities Space Research Association, Huntsville, AL, USA.
⁷ Space Science Department, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, USA.
⁸ NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, USA.
⁹ Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany.
¹⁰ Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva, Versoix, Switzerland.
¹¹ INAF - Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Roma, Italy.
¹² Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹³ National Science Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA.
¹⁴ Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
¹⁵ Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
¹⁶ Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA.

PMID: 33442039
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03076-9

A bright γ-ray flare interpreted as a giant magnetar flare in NGC 253

D Svinkin et al. Nature. 2021 Jan.

. 2021 Jan;589(7841):211-213.

doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-03076-9. Epub 2021 Jan 13.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Ioffe Institute, St Petersburg, Russia. svinkin@mail.ioffe.ru.
² Ioffe Institute, St Petersburg, Russia.
³ Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁴ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.
⁵ Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia.
⁶ Science and Technology Institute, Universities Space Research Association, Huntsville, AL, USA.
⁷ Space Science Department, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, USA.
⁸ NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, USA.
⁹ Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany.
¹⁰ Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva, Versoix, Switzerland.
¹¹ INAF - Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Roma, Italy.
¹² Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹³ National Science Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA.
¹⁴ Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
¹⁵ Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
¹⁶ Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA.

PMID: 33442039
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03076-9

Abstract

Soft γ-ray repeaters exhibit bursting emission in hard X-rays and soft γ-rays. During the active phase, they emit random short (milliseconds to several seconds long), hard-X-ray bursts, with peak luminosities¹ of 10³⁶ to 10⁴³ erg per second. Occasionally, a giant flare with an energy of around 10⁴⁴ to 10⁴⁶ erg is emitted². These phenomena are thought to arise from neutron stars with extremely high magnetic fields (10¹⁴ to 10¹⁵ gauss), called magnetars^1,3,4. A portion of the second-long initial pulse of a giant flare in some respects mimics short γ-ray bursts^5,6, which have recently been identified as resulting from the merger of two neutron stars accompanied by gravitational-wave emission⁷. Two γ-ray bursts, GRB 051103 and GRB 070201, have been associated with giant flares^2,8-11. Here we report observations of the γ-ray burst GRB 200415A, which we localized to a 20-square-arcmin region of the starburst galaxy NGC 253, located about 3.5 million parsecs away. The burst had a sharp, millisecond-scale hard spectrum in the initial pulse, which was followed by steady fading and softening over 0.2 seconds. The energy released (roughly 1.3 × 10⁴⁶ erg) is similar to that of the superflare^5,12,13 from the Galactic soft γ-ray repeater SGR 1806-20 (roughly 2.3 × 10⁴⁶ erg). We argue that GRB 200415A is a giant flare from a magnetar in NGC 253.

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Cosmic electromagnetic bomb sheds light on the origins of γ-ray bursts.
Thompson C. Thompson C. Nature. 2021 Jan;589(7841):199-200. doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-03657-8. Nature. 2021. PMID: 33442038 No abstract available.

References

1. Kaspi, V. M. & Beloborodov, A. M. Magnetars. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 55, 261–301 (2017).
1. Mazets, E. P. et al. A giant flare from a soft gamma repeater in the Andromeda galaxy (M31). Astrophys. J. 680, 545–549 (2008).
1. Duncan, R. C. & Thompson, C. Formation of very strongly magnetized neutron stars: implications for gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 392, L9–L13 (1992).
1. Mereghetti, S. et al. Magnetars: properties, origin and evolution. Space Sci. Rev. 191, 315–338 (2015).
1. Hurley, K. et al. An exceptionally bright flare from SGR 1806−20 and the origins of short-duration γ-ray bursts. Nature 434, 1098–1103 (2005). - PubMed

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A bright γ-ray flare interpreted as a giant magnetar flare in NGC 253

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A bright γ-ray flare interpreted as a giant magnetar flare in NGC 253

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Abstract

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References

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