SWIFT study of the first SGR-like burst from AXP 1E 1841-045 in SNR Kes 73

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observed SGR-like burst from AXP 1E 1841-045, analyzing its spectral properties and comparing pre- and post-burst emission to understand magnetar activity.

Contribution

It presents the discovery and detailed spectral analysis of the first SGR-like burst from AXP 1E 1841-045, expanding understanding of magnetar burst phenomena.

Findings

Detected a 32 ms burst with fluence 1.1e-8 erg/cm^2

Observed spectral softening after the burst

Compared burst properties with other magnetars

Abstract

We report the study of the short (32 ms) and first SGR-like burst observed from the anomalous X-ray pulsar (AXP) 1E 1841-045 associated with the supernova remnant (SNR) Kes 73, discovered on 2010 May 6 by the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) onboard the Swift gamma-ray observatory. The 15-100 keV time-averaged burst spectrum is modeled by a single power-law (PL) with a photon index Gamma=3.2$^{+1.8}_{-1.0}$, and has a fluence of 1.1$^{+0.4}_{-0.6}$$\times$10$^{-8}$ ergs cm$^{-2}$, luminosity of 2.9$^{+1.1}_{-1.6}$$\times$10$^{39}$ ergs s$^{-1}$, and energy of 7.2$^{+0.4}_{-0.6}$$\times$10$^{36}$ ergs. The prompt after-burst 0.5-10 keV quiescent spectrum obtained with the Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT) is best-fit by an absorbed PL model with Gamma=2.6$\pm$0.2 and an unabsorbed flux of 9.1$^{+1.2}_{-1.4}$$\times$10$^{-11}$ ergs cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. To investigate the pre-burst 0.5-10 keV persistent emission, we analyzed the archival XMM-Newton observations and the spectra are well fitted by a two-component blackbody (BB) plus PL model with a temperature kT=0.45$\pm$0.03 keV, Gamma=1.9$\pm$0.2, and an unabsorbed flux of 4.3$^{+0.9}_{-1.2}$$\times$10$^{-11}$ ergs cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. Comparing the Swift-XRT spectrum with the XMM-Newton spectrum, spectral softening post-burst is evident with a 2.1 times increase in the unabsorbed flux. We discuss the burst activity and the persistent emission properties of AXP 1E 1841-045 in comparison with other magnetars and in the context of the magnetar model.