A phenomenological model of the magnetic field re-emergence in magnetars and discrepancy between the kinematic and characteristic ages
Robust age measurements for isolated neutron stars (NSs) are not easily available. That is why, often the characteristic age $τ_\mathrm{ch}=P/2\dot P$ is used as a proxy. Here $P$ is the spin period of the NS and $\dot P$ is the time derivative of $P$. Additional assumptions related to the initial properties and spin-down evolution are made to derive $τ_\mathrm{ch}$. As a result, it is expected that $τ_\mathrm{ch}$ is an upper limit for the real age $τ_\mathrm{real}$. Recently, Chrimes et al. presented measurements of kinematic ages $τ_\mathrm{kin}$ for several magnetars. Surprisingly, for the majority of these sources $τ_\mathrm{kin}>τ_\mathrm{ch}$. We present a simple model including a realistic approximation for the magnetic field decay in magnetars and a simple phenomenological description of the field re-emergence after an episode of fallback after the birth of a NS. We demonstrate that this simple model can explain the observed relation $τ_\mathrm{kin}>τ_\mathrm{ch}$ for realistic sets of parameters.