The Swift Discovery of X-ray Afterglows Accompanying Short Bursts from SGR 1900+14

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery and analysis of X-ray afterglows following short bursts from SGR 1900+14, revealing their decay behavior and initial luminosities, and comparing them to short gamma-ray burst afterglows.

Contribution

It presents the first detection of X-ray afterglows for short bursts from SGR 1900+14 and analyzes their decay properties and luminosities.

Findings

Afterglow luminosities decrease by 30-50% over observation periods.

Decay follows a power law with indices p ~ 0.2-0.4.

Initial bolometric luminosities are around 10^34-10^35 erg s^-1.

Abstract

The discovery of X-ray afterglows accompanying two short bursts from SGR 1900+14 is presented. The afterglow luminosities at the end of each observation are lower by 30-50% than their initial luminosities, and decay with power law indices p ~ 0.2-0.4. Their initial bolometric luminosities are L ~ 10^34-10^35 erg s^-1. We discuss analogies and differences between the X-ray afterglows of SGR short bursts and short gamma-ray bursts.