2009/01/22 by T. Enoto, Teruaki Enoto, Y. E. Nakagawa +23 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Black-body radiation #Bursting #Fluence #Flux (metallurgy) #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Irradiation #Magnetar #Materials science #Neutron star #Nuclear physics #Optics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Radiation #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/693/2/l122
4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL
arxiv created 2009/01/22 · openalex publication_date 2009/02/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present the first Suzaku observation of the new Soft Gamma Repeater, SGR 0501+4516, performed on 2008 August 26, four days after the onset of bursting activity of this new member of the magnetar family. The soft X-ray persistent emission was detected with the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS) at a 0.5–10 keV flux of 3.8 × 10 −11 erg s −1 cm −2 , with a spectrum well fitted by an absorbed blackbody plus power-law model. The source pulsation was confirmed at a period of 5.762072 ± 0.000002 s, and 32 X-ray bursts were detected by the XIS, four of which were also detected at higher energies by the Hard X-ray Detector (HXD). The strongest burst, which occurred at 03:16:16.9 (UTC), was so bright that it caused instrumental saturation, but its precursor phase, lasting for about 200 ms, was detected successfully over the 0.5–200 keV range, with a fluence of ∼2.1 × 10 −7 erg cm −2 and a peak intensity of about 89 crab. The entire burst fluence is estimated to be ∼50 times higher. The precursor spectrum was very hard, and well modeled by a combination of two blackbodies. We discuss the bursting activity and X/γ-ray properties of this newly discovered Soft Gamma Repeater in comparison with other members of the class.