Draft version October 23, 2018 Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj NATURE AND NURTURE: A MODEL FOR SOFT GAMMA-RAY REPEATERS Bing Zhang1,2,3, R. X. Xu4, G. J. Qiao5,4 Draft version October 23, 2018 ABSTRACT During supernova explosions, strange stars with almost bare quark surfaces may be formed. Under certain conditions, these stars could be rapidly spun down by the torque exerted by the fossil disks formed from the fall-back materials. They may also receive large kicks and hence, have large proper motion velocities. When these strange stars pass through the spherical “Oort” comet cloud formed during the pre-supernova era, they will capture some small-scale comet clouds and collide with some comet-like objects occasionally. These impacts can account for the repeating bursts as observed from the soft gamma repeaters (SGRs). According to this picture, it is expected that SGR 1900+14 will become active again during 2004-2005. Subject headings: pulsars: general — stars: neutron — dense matter — gamma-rays: bursts — accretion, accretion disks 1. INTRODUCTION Duncan 1995, 1996; Thompson 2000). However, the differ- Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (hereafter SGRs) and ences between SGRs and AXPs are not straightforwardly interpreted since these objects are not intrinsically differ- Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (hereafter AXPs) are two groups of enigmatic sources. They share the following proper- ent objects within the magnetar picture. It also remains ties: 1. They all have long rotation periods (clustered unclear how some other issues, e.g., the non-systematic discrepancy between the characteristic ages derived assum- within 5-12 seconds) and large spin-down rates (see, e.g. Mereghetti & Stella 1995; Kouveliotou et al. 1998, 1999); ing dipolar spindown and the ages of the associated super- nova remnants, no clear positive dependence between L 2. Most of them are associated with supernova remnants, x and the polar surface field strength B , etc., can be prop- indicating that they are young objects (for reviews, see p Hurley 1999; Mereghetti 1999); 3. No optical, infrared erly addressed. On the other hand, a fossil-disk-accretion model for AXPs recently emerges from the independent or radio counterparts have been identified (e.g. Eiken- studies by Chatterjee et al. (Chatterjee, Hernquist & berry & Dror 2000; Lorimer & Xilouris 2000); 4. They all have soft persistent pulsed X-ray emission with lumi- Narayan 2000; Chatterjee & Hernquist 2000) and Alpar − (1999, 2000). The neutron stars in such a scenario have nosities of L ∼ 1035 − 1036 ergs s 1, well in excess of x normal magnetic fields as the Crab pulsar. The model can the spin down energy of these sources (e.g. Thompson 2000 for a review). The main difference between both interpret the AXP phenomenology well, but the bursts from the SGRs are difficult to interpret. On the obser- types of the objects is that SGRs show occasional soft vational ground, Marsden et al. (2000) observed that the gamma-ray bursts while AXPs do not. It is also found that SGRs usually have larger proper motion velocities SGRs and the AXPs are located in a much denser envi- ronment than the normal pulsars. They hence argue that than AXPs according to their relative positions with re- arXiv:astro-ph/0010225v1 11 Oct 2000 the peculiar behaviors of the SGRs and AXPs may be due spect to the cores of their supernova remnants (Hurley 1999). The main characteristics of the SGR bursts in- to their “nurture” from the environment rather than due to their special “nature” (i.e. magnetars) as compared clude: 1. Most of the bursts have super-Eddington lumi- 38 42 −1 with the normal pulsars. However, no plausible idea was nosities with Lb ∼ 10 − 10 erg s ; 2. The fluence distribution of the bursts is a power-law, and there is no proposed to connect the “nurture” to the phenomenology of these sources, especially the bursting behavior of the correlation between the burst intensity and the time in- tervals between the bursts (G¨og¨us et al. 1999; 2000); 3. SGRs. Two giant flares have been detected from SGR 0526-66 In this Letter, we attempt to propose a model to un- derstand the bursting behavior of the SGRs without in- (the March 5, 1979 event) and SGR 1900+14 (the August 27, 1998 event), which share some common properties (see troducing the magnetar idea. We propose that the cen- Thompson 2000 for a review); 4. Most bursts have soft tral objects of the SGRs are “bare” strange stars with normal magnetic fields (1012 − 1013 G). We assume that spectra with characteristic energy around 20-30 keV. The popular model for SGRs and AXPs is the magne- these strange stars are born directly from supernova explo- tar model, which can account for almost all the phenom- sions from some massive progenitors, and they have expe- rienced a spindown history as that having been proposed ena listed above (Duncan & Thompson 1992; Thompson & 1Laboratory of High Energy Astrophysics, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 2National Research Council Research Associate 3Present address: Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16803, [email protected] 4CAS-PKU Beijing Astrophysical Center and Astronomy Department, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China 5CCAST (World Laboratory) P.O.Box 8730, Beijing 100080, China 1 2 for the AXPs within the fossil disk model (Chatterjee et star can naturally evade such a criticism, since the in- al. 2000; Alpar 2000). According to this model, some fall matter will be essentially converted into strange quark fallback materials from the supernova ejecta will form a matter within a very short period of time (∼ 10−7 s, Dai fossil disk around the strange star. The SGRs/AXPs are et al. 1995) when they penetrate into the star. A new- just such strange/neutron stars that have experienced the born bare strange star may have a very thin normal mat- “propeller” phase (rc ≪ rm < rl), and are now in the ter atmosphere (Xu et al. 2000), which is far less than “tracking” phase (rc ∼< rm < rl) when infall of the ma- the amount required to pollute the fireball. 3. Obser- terials onto the surface is possible and the star is X-ray vationally, SGRs tend to have larger proper motion ve- −1 bright. Here rl, rm and rc are the light cylinder, the mag- locities (∼ 1000km s ) than normal pulsars and AXPs. netospheric radius, and the corotating radius, respectively. Though we do not attempt to propose a detailed “kick” In our picture, AXPs may be still neutron stars. We will theory in the present Letter, we note that the formation attribute the SGR bursts to their occasionally collisions of a strange star rather than a neutron star may poten- with some comet-like objects in the dense environment of tially pose some possibilities to interpret the large proper the SGRs. We will show how various SGR properties as motion velocities of SGRs. Present kick theories invoke reviewed above could be accounted for within this picture. either hydrodynamically-driven or neutrino-driven mech- Our model differs from some other strange star SGR mod- anisms (Lai 2000). For the former, the kick arises from els (e.g. Alcock et al. 1986b; Cheng & Dai 1998; Dar & presupernova g-mode perturbations amplified during the de Rujula 2000). core collapse, leading to asymmetric explosion (Lai & Gol- dreich 2000). We note that the formation of a strange star 2. THE MODEL is a two-step process, i.e., the formation of a proto-neutron Strange stars (Haensel, Zdunik & Schaeffer 1986; Al- star and phase conversion. Neutrino emission in the sec- cock, Farhi & Olinto 1986a) are hypothetical objects based ond step could be significantly asymmetric since the phase upon the assumption that strange quark matter is more conversion may be off-centered due to the initial density stable than nuclear matter (Witten 1984; Farhi & Jaffe perturbation (Dong Lai, 2000, personal communication). 1984). Though the existence of such stars are still sub- An off-centered transition condition may be also realized ject to debate, some evidence in favor of strange stars in the presence of an electron-neutrino-degenerate gas in has recently been collected (e.g. Li et al. 1999a, 1999b; a proto-neutron star (Benvenuto & Lugones 1999). Thus Titarchuk & Osherovich 2000). Strange stars can be ei- the phase transition process may give an additional kick ther bare or have normal matter crusts (Alcock et al. to achieve a higher velocity. More detailed investigations 1986a). They can be formed directly during or shortly are desirable to verify these proposals. after some supernova explosions when the central density We now describe the model in more detail. We assume of the proto-neutron stars is high enough to induce phase that the progenitor of a strange star is surrounded by a conversion (e.g. Dai, Peng & Lu 1995; Xu, Zhang & Qiao huge spherical comet cloud which is similar to the Oort 2000). If a strange star is born directly from a supernova Cloud in the solar system. They may be formed during explosion, it is likely that the star might be almost bare the formation of the massive star, and have almost fin- (Xu et al. 2000). Some radio pulsars may be such strange ished gravitational relaxation. Since the progenitor of a stars with exposed bare quark surfaces (Xu, Qiao & Zhang strange star should have a mass larger than 10M⊙, we 1999). expect that the radius of the Oort Cloud in the progen- There are three main motivations for us to choose (bare) itor system may be one order of magnitude larger than strange stars rather than neutron stars to interpret the the solar value (∼ 2 × 1013 km Weissman 1990)., i.e., 14 SGRs.