Three Preludes on a Theme of Magnetars: Spindown, Nucleosynthesis, and Giant Flares

Todd Thompson, Professor and Department Chair

Neutron stars born with magnetic fields greater than 1014 G (“magnetars”) are common in the Galaxy. Approximately 10 – 50% of the young neutron star population possesses such field strengths. These objects exhibit very slow rotation, spectacular flares, and may be connected to the fast radio burst phenomenon and other exotica. Much rarer, very rapidly-rotating magnetars may power super-luminous supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. I will discuss three new sets of results within this context: (1) early magnetar spindown during the proto-neutron star phase lasting 10s of seconds after massive star core collapse; (2) the potential for heavy element nucleosynthesis during this phase; and (3) new models for the ejection of neutron-rich baryonic material during the giant flares that accompany magnetar evolution thousands of years after their birth. I will present evidence that fresh heavy-element r-process nucleosynthesis was directly observed in the MeV emission after the famous giant flare of the magnetar SGR 1806-20.

Biography: Prof. Thompson is a theoretical astrophysicist with broad interests. Thompson has made contributions to the theory of core-collapse supernovae and the origin of the heavy r-process elements, the physics of the far-infrared and gamma-ray – radio correlations of star-forming galaxies, the theory of galactic winds and massive star feedback, the dynamics of triple systems, and to the discovery of new black hole – stellar binary star systems. He uses a combination of analytic and numerical calculations to explore these topics, and he is a core member of the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN). (From OSU Astronomy)