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Published September 2, 1993 | public
Journal Article

Identification of a supernova remnant coincident with the soft γ-ray repeater SGR1806-20

Abstract

The 'soft' spectra, short duration and recurrent activity of the three known soft γ-ray repeaters (SGRs) distinguishes them from the majority of cosmic γ-ray bursts. Although there is no generally accepted model for the repeaters, it has been argued that they are associated with radio pulsars: this is consistent with the coincidence of SGR0526 - 66 with the supernova remnant N49 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and the location of the two other repeaters at low galactic latitudes. Here we show that the well localized repeater SGR1806 – 20 (refs 2,3) is also coincident with a supernova remnant: the amorphous radio nebula G 10.0 – 0.3 (refs 7,8). Taken together, these two associations argue strongly in favour of a neutron-star origin for the repeaters. We suggest that all young pulsars–that is, neutron stars still embedded in their supernova remnants–pass through a brief (~500 year) phase of SGR activity. The detection of pulsar-powered synchrotron nebulae in, or pulsations from, the two supernova remnants coincident with SGRs would confirm this model.

Additional Information

© 1993 Nature Publishing Group. Received 1 June; accepted 16 July 1993. S.R.K. is indebted to T. Murakami for getting him interested in gamma ray busters. s.R.K. thanks H. Komiya for suggesting the idea leading to equation (1). Murakami and W. Deich for discussions, and Y. Tanaka and ISAS for hospitality under the ISAS Visiting Professorship programme. We thank the librarians at Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasburg France for maintaining the SIMBAD database and to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory for initiating and operating the VLA archival program. S.R.K. is supported in part by NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Packard Foundation. D.A.F. is supported by a NRAO Jansky posdoctoral research associateship. The VLA is operated by Associated Universities Inc. under a cooperative agreement with the N.S.F.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023