The 2022 High-energy Outburst and Radio Disappearing Act of the Magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408
Abstract
We report the radio and high-energy properties of a new outburst from the radio-loud magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408. Following the detection of a short burst from the source with Swift-BAT on 2022 April 7, observations by NICER detected an increased flux peaking at (6.0 ± 0.4) × 10-11 erg s-1 cm-2 in the soft X-ray band, falling to a baseline level of 1.7 × 10-11 erg s-1 cm-2 over a 17 day period. Joint spectroscopic measurements by NICER and NuSTAR indicated no change in the hard nonthermal tail despite the prominent increase in soft X-rays. Observations at radio wavelengths with Murriyang, the 64 m Parkes radio telescope, revealed that the persistent radio emission from the magnetar disappeared at least 22 days prior to the initial Swift-BAT detection and was redetected two weeks later. Such behavior is unprecedented in a radio-loud magnetar, and may point to an unnoticed slow rise in the high-energy activity prior to the detected short bursts. Finally, our combined radio and X-ray timing revealed the outburst coincided with a spin-up glitch, where the spin frequency and spin-down rate increased by 0.2 ± 0.1 μHz and (-2.4 ± 0.1) × 10-12 s-2, respectively. A linear increase in the spin-down rate of (-2.0 ± 0.1) × 10-19 s-3 was also observed over 147 days of postoutburst timing. Our results suggest that the outburst may have been associated with a reconfiguration of the quasi-polar field lines, likely signaling a changing twist, accompanied by spatially broader heating of the surface and a brief quenching of the radio signal, yet without any measurable impact on the hard X-ray properties.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- March 2023
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2302.07397
- Bibcode:
- 2023ApJ...945..153L
- Keywords:
-
- Magnetars;
- Pulsars;
- Radio pulsars;
- High energy astrophysics;
- Neutron stars;
- 992;
- 1306;
- 1353;
- 739;
- 1108;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- Accepted to ApJ, 18 pages, 7 figures. Fixed typo in abstract and discussion