Magnetar Eruptions and Electromagnetic Fireworks

TL;DR

This paper proposes a comprehensive model explaining magnetar outbursts, including X-ray flares and fast radio bursts, by analyzing magnetic instabilities and a novel FRB generation mechanism involving magnetic island formation.

Contribution

It introduces a unified framework linking magnetar surface motions, magnetic instabilities, and a new FRB emission process in the outer magnetosphere.

Findings

Magnetic flux bundle instabilities can produce observed X-ray flares.

The proposed FRB mechanism explains bright extragalactic fast radio bursts.

Magnetic island formation leads to GHz emission consistent with observations.

Abstract

Highly magnetized neutron stars are a source of extreme transients observed in different bands, like the fast radio burst (FRB) and associated hard X-ray burst from the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154. The origin of such outbursts, hard X-rays on the one hand and millisecond duration FRBs on the other hand, is still unknown. We present a global model for various kinds of such magnetar outbursting activities. Crustal surface motions are expected to twist the inner magnetar magnetosphere by shifting the frozen-in footpoints of magnetic field lines. We discuss criteria for the development of instabilities of 3D twisted flux bundles in the force-free dipolar magnetospheres and compare their energetic properties to observations of magnetar X-ray flares. We then review a recently developed FRB generation mechanism in the outer magnetosphere of a magnetar. The strong magnetic pulse induced by a magnetar flare collides with the current sheet of the magnetar wind, compresses and fragments it into a self-similar chain of magnetic islands. Time-dependent plasma currents created during their collisions produce relatively narrow-band GHz emission with luminosities sufficient to explain bright extragalactic FRBs.