An expanding radio nebula produced by a giant flare from the magnetar SGR 1806-20

被引:143
作者
Gaensler, BM
Kouveliotou, C
Gelfand, JD
Taylor, GB
Eichler, D
Wijers, RAMJ
Granot, J
Ramirez-Ruiz, E
Lyubarsky, YE
Hunstead, RW
Campbell-Wilson, D
van der Horst, AJ
McLaughlin, MA
Fender, RP
Garrett, MA
Newton-McGee, KJ
Palmer, DM
Gehrels, N
Woods, PM
机构
[1] Harvard Smithsonian Ctr Astrophys, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
[2] NASA, George C Marshall Space Flight Ctr, Huntsville, AL 35805 USA
[3] Univ Space Res Assoc, NSSTC, Huntsville, AL 35805 USA
[4] Stanford Univ, Kavli Inst Particle Astrophys & Cosmol, Stanford, CA 94309 USA
[5] Natl Radio Astron Observ, Socorro, NM 87801 USA
[6] Ben Gurion Univ Negev, Dept Phys, IL-84105 Beer Sheva, Israel
[7] Univ Amsterdam, Astron Inst Anton Pannekoek, NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam, Netherlands
[8] Inst Adv Study, Princeton, NJ 08540 USA
[9] Univ Sydney, Sch Phys, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
[10] Univ Manchester, Jodrell Bank Observ, Macclesfield SK11 9DL, Cheshire, England
[11] Univ Southampton, Sch Phys & Astron, Southampton SO17 1BJ, Hants, England
[12] Joint Inst VLBI Europe, NL-7990 AA Dwingeloo, Netherlands
[13] CSIRO, Australia Telescope Natl Facil, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia
[14] Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA
[15] NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA
关键词
D O I
10.1038/nature03498
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are 'magnetars', a small class of slowly spinning neutron stars with extreme surface magnetic fields, B approximate to 10(15) gauss (refs 1-3). On 27 December 2004, a giant flare(4) was detected from the magnetar SGR 1806-20 (ref. 2), only the third such event recorded(5,6). This burst of energy was detected by a variety of instruments(7,8) and even caused an ionospheric disturbance in the Earth's upper atmosphere that was recorded around the globe(9). Here we report the detection of a fading radio afterglow produced by this outburst, with a luminosity 500 times larger than the only other detection of a similar source(10). From day 6 to day 19 after the flare from SGR 1806-20, a resolved, linearly polarized, radio nebula was seen, expanding at approximately a quarter of the speed of light. To create this nebula, at least 4 x 10(43) ergs of energy must have been emitted by the giant flare in the form of magnetic fields and relativistic particles.
引用
收藏
页码:1104 / 1106
页数:3
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