Magnetar giant flares in multipolar magnetic fields. III. Multipolar magnetic field structure variations

TL;DR

This paper models how variations in multipolar magnetic field structures on magnetar surfaces can lead to catastrophic magnetospheric eruptions, explaining giant flares and their energy release mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed magnetospheric model incorporating multipolar magnetic field variations and flux rope dynamics to explain giant flare triggers.

Findings

Multipolar magnetic field variations can cause magnetospheric eruptions.

Energy release during flares can reach about 0.5% of total magnetic energy.

Model explains energy release in SGR 1806-20 giant flares.

Abstract

We have analyzed the multipolar magnetic field structure variation at neutron star surface by means of the catastrophic eruption model, and find that the variation of the geometry of multipolar fields on the magnetar surface could result in the catastrophic rearrangement of the magnetosphere, which provides certain physical mechanism for the outburst of giant flares. The magnetospheric model we adopted consists of two assumptions: a helically twisted flux rope is suspended in an ideal force-free magnetosphere around the magnetar, and a current sheet emerges during the flux rope evolution. Magnetic energy accumulates during the flux rope's gradual evolution along with the variation of magnetar surface magnetic structure before the eruption. The two typical behaviors, either state transition or catastrophic escape, would take place once the flux rope loses equilibrium, thus tremendous accumulated energy is radiated. We have investigated the equilibrium state of the flux rope and the energy release affected by different multipolar structures, and find structures that could trigger violent eruption and provide the radiation approximately 0.5$\%$ of the total magnetic energy during the giant flare outburst. Our results provide certain multipolar structures of the neutron star's magnetic field with an energy release percentage 0.42$\%$ in the state transition and 0.51$\%$ in the catastrophic escape case, which are sufficient for the previously reported energy release from SGR 1806-20 giant flares.