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Register a new userQuasi-Periodic Oscillations and broadband variability in short magnetar bursts
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Daniela Huppenkothen
Publication date
2012
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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The discovery of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in magnetar giant flares has opened up prospects for neutron star asteroseismology. However, with only three giant flares ever recorded, and only two with data of sufficient quality to search for QPOs, such analysis is seriously data limited. We set out a procedure for doing QPO searches in the far more numerous, short, less energetic magnetar bursts. The short, transient nature of these bursts requires the implementation of sophisticated statistical techniques to make reliable inferences. Using Bayesian statistics, we model the periodogram as a combination of red noise at low frequencies and white noise at high frequencies, which we show is a conservative approach to the problem. We use empirical models to make inferences about the potential signature of periodic and quasi-periodic oscillations at these frequencies. We compare our method with previously used techniques and find that although it is on the whole more conservative, it is also more reliable in ruling out false positives. We illustrate our Bayesian method by applying it to a sample of 27 bursts from the magnetar SGR J0501+4516 observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, and we find no evidence for the presence of QPOs in any of the bursts in the unbinned spectra, but do find a candidate detection in the binned spectra of one burst. However, whether this signal is due to a genuine quasi-periodic process, or can be attributed to unmodeled effects in the noise is at this point a matter of interpretation.
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Quasi-periodic oscillations inferred during rare magnetar giant flare tails were initially interpreted as torsional oscillations of the neutron star (NS) crust, and have been more recently described as global core+crust perturbations. Similar frequencies are also present in high signal-to-noise magnetar short bursts. In magnetars, disturbances of the field are strongly coupled to the NS crust regardless of the triggering mechanism of short bursts. For low-altitude magnetospheric magnetar models of fast radio bursts (FRBs) associated with magnetar short bursts, such as the low-twist model, crustal oscillations may be associated with additional radio bursts in the encompassing short burst event (as recently suggested for SGR 1935+2154). Given the large extragalactic volume probed by wide-field radio transient facilities, this offers the prospect of studying NS crusts leveraging samples far more numerous than galactic high-energy magnetar bursts by studying statistics of sub-burst structure or clustered trains of FRBs. We explore the prospects for distinguishing NS equation of state models with increasingly larger future sets of FRB observations. Lower $l$-number eigenmodes (corresponding to FRB time intervals of $sim5-50$ ms) are likely less susceptible than high-$l$ modes to confusion by systematic effects associated with the NS crust physics, magnetic field, and damping. They may be more promising in their utility, and also may corroborate models where FRBs arise from mature magnetars. Future observational characterization of such signals can also determine whether they can be employed as cosmological standard oscillators to constrain redshift, or can be used to constrain the mass of FRB-producing magnetars when reliable redshifts are available.
High frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) from weakly magnetized neutron stars display rapid frequency variability and high coherence with quality factors up to at least 200 at frequencies around 850 Hz. Their parameters have been estimated so far from standard min(chi2) fitting techniques, after combining a large number of Power Density Spectra (PDS), as to have the powers normally distributed. Accounting for the statistical properties of PDS, we apply a maximum likelihood method to derive the QPO parameters in the non Gaussian regime. The method presented is general, easy to implement and can be applied to fitting individual PDS, several PDS simultaneously or their average, and is obviously not specific to the analysis of kHz QPO data. It applies to the analysis of any PDS optimized in frequency resolution and for low frequency variability or PDS containing features whose parameters vary on short timescales, as is the case for kHz QPOs. It is equivalent to the standard chi^2 minimization fitting when the number of PDS fitted is large. The accuracy, reliability and superiority of the method is demonstrated with simulations of synthetic PDS. We show that the maximum likelihood estimates of the QPO parameters are asymptotically unbiased, and have negligible bias when the QPO is reasonably well detected. By contrast, we show that the standard min(chi2) fitting method gives biased parameters with larger uncertainties. The maximum likelihood fitting method is applied to a subset of archival Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) data of the neutron star X-ray binary 4U1608-522. We show that the kHz QPO parameters can be measured on 8 second timescales and that the time evolution of the frequency is consistent with a random walk. This enables us to estimate the intrinsic quality factor of the QPO to be around 260, whereas previous analysis indicated a maximum value around 200 (abridged).
We present evidence for Quasi Periodic Oscillations (QPOs) in the recurrent outburst activity from SGR 1806-20 using Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) observations during November 1996. Searching for QPOs in a sample of 30 bursts at similar frequencies to those previously reported in the December 27, 2004 giant flare, we find evidence for a QPO in a burst at 648 Hz at 5.17{sigma} confidence level, lying within 3.75% from the 625 Hz QPO discovered in the giant flare. Two additional features are also detected around 84 and 103 Hz in two other bursts at 4.2{sigma} and 4.8{sigma} confidence level, respectively, which lie within 8.85% and 11.83% respectively from the QPO at 92.5 Hz also detected in the giant flare. Accounting for the number of bursts analyzed the confidence levels for the 84, 103 and 648 Hz becomes 3{sigma}, 3.6{sigma} and 3.4{sigma} respectively. Extending our search to other frequency ranges, we find candidates at 1096, 1230, 2785 and 3690 Hz in 3 different bursts with confidence levels lying between 4.14{sigma}-4.46{sigma}, which is reduced to 2.3{sigma}-3{sigma} after accounting for a certain confirmation bias in each case. The fact that we can find evidence for QPOs in the recurrent bursts at frequencies relatively close to those found in the giant flare is intriguing. We examine the candidate QPOs in relation with those found in the giant flare and discuss their possible physical origin.
We report the discovery ($20sigma$) of kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) at ~ 690 Hz from the transient neutron star low-mass X-ray binary EXO 1745-248. We find that this is a lower kHz QPO, and systematically study the time variation of its properties using smaller data segments with and without the shift-and-add technique. The quality (Q) factor occasionally significantly varies within short ranges of frequency and time. A high Q-factor (264.5 +- 38.5) of the QPO is found for a 200 s time segment, which might be the largest value reported in the literature. We argue that an effective way to rule out kHz QPO models is to observationally find such high Q-factors, even for a short duration, as many models cannot explain a high coherence. However, as we demonstrate, the shift-and-add technique cannot find a very high Q-factor which appears for a short period of time. This shows that the coherences of kHz QPOs can be higher than the already high values reported using this technique, implying further constraints on models. We also discuss the energy dependence of fractional rms amplitude and Q-factor of the kHz QPO.
The gravitational-wave detectors LIGO and Virgo together with their electromagnetic partner facilities have transformed the modus operandi in which we seek information about the Universe. The first ever-observed neutron-star merger---GW170817---confirmed the association of short gamma-ray bursts with neutron-star mergers and the production of heavy (r-process) elements. Based on recent theoretical and observational developments, I briefly present and discuss a conjecture, namely that compact accretion disks in both short and long gamma-ray bursts synthesize most of the heavy r-process elements in the Universe. The upcoming era of multi-messenger astronomy may allow us to verify or falsify this conjecture.
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