Energy Sources of Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters

Abstract

Quiescence and burst emission and relativistic particle winds of soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) have been widely interpreted to result from ultrastrongly magnetized neutron stars. In this magnetar model, the magnetic energy and gravitational energy of the neutron stars are suggested as the energy sources of all the emission and winds. However, Harding, Contopoulos & Kazanas (1999) have shown that the magnetic field should be only ~ 3 x 10^{13} G in order to match the characteristic spin-down timescale of SGR 1806-20 and its SNR age. Here we argue that if the magnetic field is indeed so weak, the previously suggested energy sources seem problematic. We further propose a plausible model in which SGR pulsars are young strange stars with superconducting cores and with a poloidal magnetic field of ~ 3 x 10^{13} G. In this model, the movement of the flux tubes not only leads to crustal cracking of the stars, giving rise to deconfinement of crustal matter to strange matter, but also to movement of internal magnetic toruses with the flux tubes. The former process will result in burst and quiescence emission and the latter process will produce steady relativistic winds which will power the surrounding supernova remnants.