GECAM discovery of the second FRB-associated Magnetar X-ray Burst from SGR J1935+2154

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a second magnetar X-ray burst associated with an FRB from SGR J1935+2154, providing new evidence for the connection between magnetar X-ray bursts and fast radio bursts.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed analysis of a second FRB-associated magnetar X-ray burst, confirming the association and revealing diverse features compared to the first event.

Findings

Confirmed the association between MXB and FRB in a second event.

Identified a temporal alignment between X-ray pulses and FRB peaks.

Highlighted differences and similarities with the first observed event.

Abstract

Fast radio burst (FRB) is mysterious phenomenon with millisecond-duration radio pulses observed mostly from cosmological distance. The association between FRB 200428 and a magnetar X-ray burst (MXB) from SGR J1935+2154 has significantly advanced the understanding of FRB and magnetar bursts. However, it is uncertain whether this association between MXB and FRB (i.e. MXB/FRB 200428) is genuine or just coincidental only based on this single event. Here we report the discovery of a bright ($\rm\sim7.6\times10^{-7}\,erg \cdot cm^{-2}$ in 1-250 keV) magnetar X-ray burst detected by GECAM on October 14th, 2022 (dubbed as MXB 221014) from SGR J1935+2154, which is associated with a FRB detected by CHIME and GBT. We conducted a detailed temporal and spectral analysis of MXB 221014 with GECAM data and find that it is a bright and typical ($T_{90}\sim$250 ms) X-ray burst from this magnetar. Interestingly, we find two narrow X-ray pulses in the MXB, one of which temporally aligns with the main pulse of the FRB 221014 $\sim5.70$ ms latter than the peak time of FRB 221014), resembling the feature found in MXB/FRB 200428. Furthermore, we did comprehensive comparison between MXB/FRB 221014 and MXB/FRB 200428, and find that while the two events share several common features, they also exhibit distinct differences, highlighting the variety of the MXB-FRB association morphology. This finding not only confirms the association between MXB and FRB but also provides new insights into the mechanism of and the relationship between FRB and MXB.