FIRST VERY LOW FREQUENCY DETECTION OF SHORT REPEATED BURSTS FROM MAGNETAR SGR J1550-5418
- Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Japan)
- CRAAM, Presbyterian Mackenzie University, Sao Paulo (Brazil)
- University of Vale do Paraiba, Sao Jose dos Campos (Brazil)
- Radio Observatorio de Jicamarca, Instituto GeofIsico del Peru, Lima, Peru (Peru)
- INPE's Southern Regional Space Research Center, Santa Maria (Brazil)
- University of Electro-Communications (Japan)
- Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo (Japan)
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.
- OSTI ID:
- 21452807
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 721, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/721/1/L24; ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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