• DOI:10.3847/2041-8205/829/1/L21
• Corpus ID: 38852069

A MAGNETAR-LIKE OUTBURST FROM A HIGH-B RADIO PULSAR

@article{Archibald2016AMO,
  title={A MAGNETAR-LIKE OUTBURST FROM A HIGH-B RADIO PULSAR},
  author={Robert F. Archibald and Victoria M. Kaspi and Shriharsh P. Tendulkar and Paul Scholz},
  journal={The Astrophysical Journal Letters},
  year={2016},
  volume={829}
}

• R. Archibald, V. Kaspi, +1 author P. Scholz
• Published 2 August 2016
• Physics
• The Astrophysical Journal Letters

Radio pulsars are believed to have their emission powered by the loss of rotational kinetic energy. By contrast, magnetars show intense X-ray and γ-ray radiation whose luminosity greatly exceeds that due to spin down and magnetar luminosity is believed to be powered by intense internal magnetic fields. A basic prediction of this picture is that radio pulsars of high magnetic field should show magnetar-like emission. Here we report on a magnetar-like X-ray outburst from the radio pulsar PSR J1119–6127, heralded by two short bright X-ray bursts on 2016 July 27 and 28. Using target of opportunity data from the Swift X-ray Telescope and NuSTAR, we show that this pulsar’s flux has brightened by a factor of in the 0.5–10 keV band, and that its previously soft X-ray spectrum has undergone a strong hardening with strong pulsations appearing for the first time above 2.5 keV, with phase-averaged emission detectable up to 25 keV. By comparing Swift-XRT and NuSTAR timing data with a pre-outburst ephemeris derived from Fermi Large Area Telescope data, we find that the source has contemporaneously undergone a large spin-up glitch of amplitude . The collection of phenomena observed thus far in this outburst strongly mirrors those in most magnetar outbursts and provides an unambiguous connection between the radio pulsar and magnetar populations.