FIRST VERY LOW FREQUENCY DETECTION OF SHORT REPEATED BURSTS FROM MAGNETAR SGR J1550-5418

Autor(es)

Tanaka, Y. T. ^[1] ; Raulin, Jean-Pierre ^[2] ; Bertoni, Fernando C. P. ^[2] ; Fagundes, P. R. ^[3] ; Chau, J. ^[4] ; Schuch, N. J. ^[5] ; Hayakawa, M. ^[6] ; Hobara, Y. ^[6] ; Terasawa, T. ^[7] ; Takahashi, T. ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Japan Aerosp Explorat Agcy, Inst Space & Astronaut Sci, Tokyo - Japan

^[2] Presbyterian Mackenzie Univ, CRAAM, Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[3] Univ Vale Paraiba, Sao Jose Dos Campos - Brazil

^[4] Inst Geofis Peru, Radio Observ Jicamarca, Lima - Peru

^[5] INPEs So Reg Space Res Ctr, Santa Maria, RS - Brazil

^[6] Univ Electrocommun, Chofu, Tokyo 182 - Japan

^[7] Univ Tokyo, Inst Cosm Ray Res, Tokyo 1138654 - Japan

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: Astrophysical Journal Letters; v. 721, n. 1, p. L24-L27, SEP 20 2010.
• Citações Web of Science: 20

Resumo

We report on the first detection of ionospheric disturbances caused by short repeated gamma-ray bursts from the magnetar SGR J1550-5418. Very low frequency (VLF) radio wave data obtained in South America clearly show sudden amplitude and phase changes at the corresponding times of eight soft gamma-ray repeater bursts. Maximum amplitude and phase changes of the VLF signals appear to be correlated with the gamma-ray fluence. On the other hand, VLF recovery timescales do not show any significant correlation with the fluence, possibly suggesting that the bursts' spectra are not similar to each other. In summary, Earth's ionosphere can be used as a very large gamma-ray detector and the VLF observations provide us with a new method to monitor high-energy astrophysical phenomena without interruption such as Earth occultation. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 06/02979-0 - Monitoramento da atividade solar e da Anomalia Magnética do Atlântico Sul (AMAS) utilizando uma rede de receptores de ondas de muito baixa frequência (VLF): SAVNET - South America VLF NETwork
• Beneficiário: Jean Pierre Raulin
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Regular