The x-ray reactivation of the radio bursting magnetar SGR J1935+2154

Abstract

A few years after its discovery as a magnetar, SGR J1935+2154 started a new burst-active phase on 2020 April 27, accompanied by a large enhancement of its X-ray persistent emission. Radio single bursts were detected during this activation, strengthening the connection between magnetars and fast radio bursts. We report on the X-ray monitoring of SGR J1935+2154 from ~3 days prior to ~3 weeks after its reactivation, using Swift, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER). We detected X-ray pulsations in the NICER and NuSTAR observations, and constrained the spin period derivative to $| \dot{P}| \lt 3\times {10}^{-11}$ s s−1 (3σ c.l.). The pulse profile showed a variable shape switching between single and double-peaked as a function of time and energy. The pulsed fraction decreased from ~34% to ~11% (5–10 keV) over ~10 days. The X-ray spectrum was well fit by an absorbed blackbody model with temperature decreasing from kTBB ~ 1.6 to 0.45–0.6 keV, plus a nonthermal power-law component (Γ ~ 1.2) observed up to ~25 keV with NuSTAR. The 0.3–10 keV X-ray luminosity increased in less than 4 days from $\sim 6\times {10}^{33}{d}_{6.6}^{2}$ erg s−1 to about $3\times {10}^{35}{d}_{6.6}^{2}$ erg s−1 and then decreased again to $2.5\times {10}^{34}{d}_{6.6}^{2}$ erg s−1 over the following 3 weeks of the outburst, where d6.6 is the source distance in units of 6.6 kpc. We also detected several X-ray bursts, with properties typical of short magnetar bursts.