On the nature of some SGRs and AXPs as rotation-powered neutron stars

TL;DR

This paper explores whether some SGRs and AXPs can be explained as rotation-powered neutron stars by using realistic NS parameters, showing that many can be consistent with this model based on their soft X-ray emission.

Contribution

It demonstrates that realistic neutron star parameters reduce the estimated magnetic fields and luminosity ratios, allowing nine SGRs/AXPs to be explained as rotation-powered pulsars based on soft X-ray data.

Findings

Nine SGRs/AXPs can be described as rotation-powered pulsars using soft X-ray data.

Hard X-ray emission complicates the energy budget, with some sources exceeding the rotation-powered threshold.

Additional observations support the rotation-powered pulsar interpretation for several sources.

Abstract

We investigate the possibility that some SGRs/AXPs could be canonical rotation-powered pulsars using realistic NS structure parameters instead of fiducial values. We show that realistic NS parameters lowers the estimated value of the magnetic field and radiation efficiency, $L_X/\dot{E}_{\rm rot}$, with respect to estimates based on fiducial NS parameters. We show that nine SGRs/AXPs can be described as canonical pulsars driven by the NS rotational energy, for $L_X$ computed in the soft (2--10~keV) X-ray band. We compute the range of NS masses for which $L_X/\dot{E}_{\rm rot}<1$. We discuss the observed hard X-ray emission in three sources of the group of nine potentially rotation-powered NSs. This additional hard X-ray component dominates over the soft one leading to $L_X/\dot{E}_{\rm rot}>1$ in two of them. We show that 9 SGRs/AXPs can be rotation-powered NSs if we analyze their X-ray luminosity in the soft 2--10~keV band. Interestingly, four of them show radio emission and six have been associated with supernova remnants (including Swift J1834.9-0846 the first SGR observed with a surrounding wind nebula). These observations give additional support to our results of a natural explanation of these sources in terms of ordinary pulsars. Including the hard X-ray emission observed in three sources of the group of potential rotation-powered NSs, this number of sources with $L_X/\dot{E}_{\rm rot}<1$ becomes seven. It remains open to verification 1) the accuracy of the estimated distances and 2) the possible contribution of the associated supernova remnants to the hard X-ray emission.