# Observations of a possible new soft gamma repeater, SGR1801-23

## 1 Introduction

Soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) are neutron stars in or near radio or optical supernova remnants. There is good evidence that they are ’magnetars’, i.e. neutron stars in which the magnetic field energy dominates all other sources of energy, including rotation (Duncan & Thompson 1992). In the case of SGR1806-20, evidence for this comes from observations of the period and period derivative of the quiescent soft X-ray emission (Kouveliotou et al. 1998). In the case of SGR1900+14, evidence comes from observations of both the spindown and of a giant flare (Kouveliotou et al. 1999, Hurley et al. 1999a; however, see Marsden, Rothschild, & Lingenfelter 1999 for a different interpretation). The magnetar model (Thompson and Duncan 1995) predicts a galactic birth rate of $``$ 1-10/10000 y, and a lifetime of $``$ 10000 y, so at any given time, up to 10 magnetars could be active. This is consistent with observational estimates of the magnetar birth rate and of the total number in the Galaxy (Kouveliotou et al. 1998). Only four have been identified to date, however, and various studies have placed upper limits on the number of active SGRs (e.g., Norris et al. 1991, Kouveliotou et al. 1992, Hurley et al. 1994). Taking the galactic magnetar census is therefore an interesting exercise for understanding the formation and life cycles of these unusual objects.

In 1997 June, during a period when SGR1806-20 was undergoing a phase of intense activity, two bursts were observed whose positions were close to, but clearly inconsistent with that of this source. It was hoped that this new source would remain active, allowing a better determination of its position, but to date this has not happened. Therefore we present the existing data at this time, even though the picture is still incomplete.

## 2 Observations

The two bursts were observed by four instruments: BATSE - CGRO (Meegan et al. 1996), Konus-A aboard the Kosmos spacecraft (Aptekar et al. 1997), Konus-W aboard the Wind spacecraft (Aptekar et al. 1995), and the GRB experiment aboard Ulysses (Hurley et al. 1992). Table 1 gives the details of the observations, including the time resolutions $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{T}`$ with which each instrument observed the bursts; the time histories are shown in Figures 1 and 2. Both are short, and have soft energy spectra, e.g. consistent with an optically thin thermal bremsstrahlung (OTTB) function with a kT of $``$ 25 keV. The peak fluxes and fluences are reported in Tables 1 and 2. Note that the peak flux of the second burst implies that the source is super-Eddington for any distance $``$ 250 pc; at the distance of the Galactic center (see below) it would be $`1200\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{E}`$. All these characteristics are typical of SGRs in general. In addition, there is evidence in the KONUS-W data for spectral evolution in the second burst (Frederiks et al. 1998): the initial phase has a spectrum consistent with an OTTB function with kT $``$ 20 keV, softening to kT $``$ 9 keV in the final phase.

## 3 Localization

The second event was observed by three instruments in high time resolution modes (Table 1), leading to two statistically independent, narrow triangulation annuli. However, since two of the spacecraft (Konus-W and CGRO) were separated by only 1.4 light-seconds, these annuli have practically identical centers and radii, and therefore intersect at grazing incidence to define two long, narrow error boxes, whose lengths are constrained by the third (Konus-W/BATSE) annulus. Only one is consistent with the BATSE error circle (radius $``$ 5<sup>o</sup>), but the error box is fully contained within it, and is therefore not constrained by it.

The first event was observed with high time resolution by Ulysses , but with time resolution greater than the event duration by the two Konus instruments, leading to relatively wide triangulation annuli. These are consistent with the first error box, but because this event occurred only $``$ 9000 s before the second one, the Ulysses -Earth vector moved only slightly between the two, resulting again in annuli which intersect the first error box at grazing incidence. This intersection is consistent with the coarse localization capabilties of Konus-A and Konus-W. Table 3 gives the details of the triangulation annuli, and Table 4 gives the coordinates of the error box.

Initially, it was thought, based on preliminary data, that a third burst originated from this source on 1997 September 12 (Hurley et al. 1997; Kouveliotou et al. 1997) and that the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer had observed it in the collimated field of view of the All-Sky Monitor, providing an error box which intersected the annuli (Smith et al. 1997). However, on this day, the Ulysses -Earth vector was equidistant from this error box and the position of SGR1806-20; thus the triangulation annulus for either one of these sources would automatically pass very close to the other. When the final data were obtained and a more precise annulus could be obtained, it proved to be consistent with the position of SGR1806-20 to better than 10 $`\mathrm{}`$, making this SGR the likely source of this event. Moreover, it turned out that the burst had entered the RXTE ASM proportional counters through their sides, and no location information could in fact be extracted from the data (D. Smith, private communication). Thus the only information on the location of this new SGR comes from the triangulation annuli and the BATSE error circle.

The error box, which is in the direction of the Galactic center, is shown in Figure 3. The triangulation annuli of the two bursts may also be combined using the statistical method of Hurley et al. (1999b) to derive an error ellipse. The method gives an acceptable $`\chi ^2`$, but results in an ellipse which is somewhat longer than the error box and only slightly smaller in area. Given the density of possible counterpart sources in the region of Figure 3, the error box is probably the more useful description of the SGR location. It lies $`0.93^\mathrm{o}`$ from the position of SGR1806-20. A timing error of $``$ 39 s would have to be invoked for one spacecraft in each of the two observations to achieve consistency with this SGR, and there is no evidence in any of the data for such an error.

## 4 Discussion

As the four known SGRs are associated with SNRs, we have searched several catalogs for possible associations. The results are shown in Figure 3. G5.4-1.2, G6.4-0.1, and G8.7-0.1 (just visible at the left of Figure 3) are from Green (1998). G6.0-1.2 is from Goss & Shaver (1970), and all other sources are from Reich, Reich, & Fürst (1990). Not all of these objects are confirmed SNRs. Of the confirmed SNRs, only G6.4-0.1 (=W28) is consistent with the error box. However, this SNR may be associated with the pulsar B1758-23 (Kaspi et al. 1993), which lies outside the error box. G5.4-0.29, G7.2+0.2, and G8.1+0.2 are other possible associations. Given that SGR1900+14 lies outside its supernova remnant (Hurley et al. 1999c), SGR1801-23 could also be associated with an object such as G5.9-0.4, which lies slightly outside the error box.

The four known SGRs are also quiescent soft X-ray sources (e.g. Hurley et al. 1999d and references therein) with fluxes $`10^{11}10^{12}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, i.e. bright enough to be detected not only in pointed observations, but also in sky surveys. Accordingly, we have searched the ROSAT catalogs available through the HEASARC. Only two objects are close to the error box. One is the unidentified source 1WGA J1802.3-2151 in the WGA catalog (White, Giommi, & Angelini 1995), which lies slightly outside it. The other is the diffuse emission associated with W28.

Finally, it has been suggested that magnetars evolve into anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) (Kouveliotou et al. 1998). Sporadic bursts from an AXP could confirm this association. Accordingly, we have checked the positions of the six known (Gotthelf & Vasisht 1998 and references therein) and one proposed (Li & van den Heuvel 1999) AXPs, but none lies near this source.

Given the shape and location of the error box, it is not unlikely that it will cross several interesting objects by chance coincidence, and the nature of this source therefore remains unknown. Based on the properties of the two events observed to date, it most closely resembles an SGR. Indeed, SGR1900+14 was discovered when it burst just 3 times in 3 days (Mazets et al. 1979); 13 years elapsed before it was detected again (Kouveliotou et al. 1993). Until SGR1801-23 bursts again, allowing a more accurate position to be derived for it, associating it with an SNR or quiescent soft X-ray source will be difficult.

KH is grateful to JPL for Ulysses support under Contract 958056, and to NASA for Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory support under grant NAG 5-3811. On the Russian side, this work was supported by RSA Contract and RFBR grants N97-02-18067 and N99-02-17031. JvP acknowledges support from NASA grants NAG5-3674 and NAG5-7808. This study has made use of data obtained from the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.