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| CfA Colloquium Schedule Fall 2005 | ||
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20 October 2005Speaker: Bryan Gaensler (CfA) Title: Magnetars and Their Environments Abstract: The last decade has revealed remarkable diversity in the neutron star population. Most notable amongst these new discoveries is the emergence of a population of "magnetars", neutron stars whose radiation is powered by extreme magnetic fields, in excess of 10^15 gauss. While there have been many intensive observations of magnetars themselves, vital clues as the nature of these exotic objects can come from understanding their interactions with their environments. I will present two recent studies which illustrate this point: the discovery of a wind bubble around the magnetar 1E 1048.1-5937, and new observations of SGR 1806-20, which for a fraction of a second last year outshone the entire Milky Way by a factor of a thousand. These observations provide crucial new information on the physics and demographics of these extreme objects.
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