Magnetars: neutron stars with huge magnetic storms

TL;DR

This paper reviews magnetars, highly magnetic neutron stars with fields around 10^{15} Gauss, highlighting their role in advancing understanding of matter under extreme magnetic conditions through high-energy emission studies.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on magnetars and their extreme magnetic fields, emphasizing recent findings and their implications.

Findings

Magnetars possess magnetic fields around 10^{15} Gauss.

High-energy emissions from magnetars reveal new physics at extreme magnetic conditions.

Flares from magnetars offer insights into matter behavior under intense magnetic fields.

Abstract

Among the many different classes of stellar objects, neutron stars provide a unique environment where we can test (at the same time) our understanding of matter with extreme density, temperature, and magnetic field. In particular, the properties of matter under the influence of magnetic fields and the role of electromagnetism in physical processes are key areas of research in physics. However, despite decades of research, our limited knowledge on the physics of strong magnetic fields is clear: we only need to note that the strongest steady magnetic field achieved in terrestrial labs is some millions of Gauss, only thousands of times stronger than a common refrigerator magnet. In this general context, I will review here the state of the art of our research on the most magnetic objects in the Universe, a small sample of neutron stars called magnetars. The study of the large high-energy emission, and the flares from these strongly magnetized (~10^{15} Gauss) neutron stars is providing crucial information about the physics involved at these extremes conditions, and favoring us with many unexpected surprises.