NICER observation of magnetars
Abstract
The Neutron Star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) is a NASA Explorer Misson of Opportunity as an attached payload aboard the International Space Station (ISS), launch in August 2016. The NICER is planned to study the interior composition and structure within neutron stars via high precise measurement of their stellar mass and radius, also to investigate dynamic and energetic behaviors of their activities. This mission will enable pulsar rotation-resolved spectroscopy in the 0.2--12 keV energy band with large collection area (about twice of the XMM-Newton observatory for soft X-ray timing), precise time-tagging resolution (~200 nsec, 25 times better than RXTE), and high sensitivity (about 2e-14 erg/s/cm2 in the 0.5--10 keV, 5-sigma for 10 ksec exposure). As one of prime goals of the mission, we will describe the science planning of the NICER magnetar observations. The NICER is expected to provide monitoring of fainter magnetar sources which cannot be performed by Swift due to its little collective area. Deep observations of quiescent magnetars and high-B radio pulsars can be also performed with the NICER to study their spectral similarity as a key to investigate the connection between these two sub-classes. Finally, ToO programs are suitable to follow-up the magnate outburst relaxation down to much fainter flux level. We will introduce the NICER strategy of the magnetar observation.
- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #15
- Pub Date:
- April 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016HEAD...1511406E