Infrared, Submillimeter, and Millimeter Observations of the
Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters
Smith, I. A., Joyce, R., Schultz, A. S. B., Hurley, K., Vrba, F. J.,
Hartmann, D., Kouveliotou, C., Van Paradijs, J., Waters, L. B. F. M.,
Chernin, L. M., Durouchoux, P., Corbel, S., and Wallyn, P.
The Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters appear to be a completely new manifestation
of neutron stars.
While a counterpart to SGR 0525-66 has only been detected in X-rays,
SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14 have highly unusual stellar counterparts,
whose spectra peak in the infrared.
Their infrared spectra appear to contain several components:
the photospheric emission from star(s) dominates at shorter wavelengths,
a bright point source dominates at 25 microns, while an extended source
dominates at 60 microns.
However, they have not been detected at submillimeter or millimeter
wavelengths.
The longer wavelength spectra are inconsistent with monoenergetic
synchrotron and black body radiation models, but are consistent with
simple dust models.
We review here our latest millimeter, submillimeter, and
infrared observations.
We also include a preliminary analysis of higher resolution infrared
spectra of SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14 taken recently by the
Cryogenic Spectrometer at the Kitt Peak 4-m telescope.
These confirm earlier observations that suggested SGR 1806-20 has
an outflow, and that the stars comprising the counterpart
to SGR 1900+14 have very similar spectra.
Status:
1997, ESA SP-382, ed. C. Winkler, T. J.-L.
Courvoisier, and Ph. Durouchoux (Noordwijk: ESA Publications), 191.
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