Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 775, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/775/2/L34
Keywords
Galaxy: center; stars: neutron; X-rays: individual (SGR J1745-2900)
Categories
Funding
- EU Marie Curie IEF [FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF-331095]
- Commonwealth of Australia
- [AYA 2012-39303]
- [SGR2009-811]
- [iLINK 2011-0303]
- [AYA 2010-21097-C03-02]
- [Prometeo 2009/103]
- [AYA2010-17631]
- [P08-TIC-4075]
- [GO2-13076X]
- [G03-14060X]
- [GO3-14099X]
- [G03-14121X]
- ICREA Funding Source: Custom
- STFC [ST/H00260X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/H00260X/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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The center of our Galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole, Sagittarius (Sgr) A*. Young, massive stars within 0.5 pc of Sgr A* are evidence of an episode of intense star formation near the black hole a few million years ago, which might have left behind a young neutron star traveling deep into Sgr A*'s gravitational potential. On 2013 April 25, a short X-ray burst was observed from the direction of the Galactic center. With a series of observations with the Chandra and the Swift satellites, we pinpoint the associated magnetar at an angular distance of 2.4 +/- 0.3 arcsec from Sgr A*, and refine the source spin period and its derivative (P = 3.7635537(2) s and (P) over dot = 6.61(4) x 10(-12) s s(-1)), confirmed by quasi simultaneous radio observations performed with the Green Bank Telescope and Parkes Radio Telescope, which also constrain a dispersion measure of DM = 1750 +/- 50 pc cm(-3), the highest ever observed for a radio pulsar. We have found that this X-ray source is a young magnetar at approximate to 0.07-2 pc from Sgr A*. Simulations of its possible motion around Sgr A* show that it is likely (similar to 90% probability) in a bound orbit around the black hole. The radiation front produced by the past activity from the magnetar passing through the molecular clouds surrounding the Galactic center region might be responsible for a large fraction of the light echoes observed in the Fe fluorescence features.
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