Mustafa Demirer

The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) has been in operation for over 17 yr, during which it has observed more than 1000 bursts from soft gamma repeaters (SGRs), also known as magnetars. Serving as a laboratory for extreme physics, magnetars are a subfamily of neutron stars characterized by extreme magnetic field strength, observed through a combination of persistent and short transient emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. We present the comprehensive GBM catalog of SGR short bursts, which supersedes the 5 yr catalog of A. C. Collazzi et al. The new catalog contains 1254 SGR short bursts observed over 17 yr, providing the longest uninterrupted, high-sensitivity, all-sky monitoring of magnetar bursts with unprecedented spectral and temporal resolution. Our catalog contains bursts from 17 unique Galactic sources, with major contributions by bursts from SGR J1935+2154 and SGR J1550–5418. We present overall characteristics of these bursts, such as the durations, spectral parameters for various photon models, and fluxes, as well as their comparison with recently published catalogs of other missions and the previous GBM magnetar catalog. The machine-readable catalog, as well as burst spectra and response files, are made publicly available for the community.

We have conducted a time-resolved spectral analysis of magnetar bursts originating from SGR J1550−5418. Our analysis utilizes a two-step methodology for temporal segmentation of the data. We first generated and fitted overlapping time segments. Subsequently, we obtained nonoverlapping time segments with varying lengths based on their spectral evolution patterns, employing a machine learning algorithm called k-means clustering. For the fitting process, we employed three distinct models, namely a modified blackbody (MBB-RCS), a double blackbody (BB+BB), and a power law with an exponential cutoff (COMPT) model. We found that nearly all of the time segments fit well with the COMPT model. Both the average peak energy in the νF _ν spectra (E _peak) and photon index parameters follow a Gaussian distribution with means ∼30 keV and −0.5, respectively. Furthermore, there is a strong positive correlation between the cooler and hotter temperature parameters of the BB+BB model, and both parameters show a Gaussian distribution with peaks ∼4 and 12 keV, respectively. Additionally, we found that the distribution of the temperature parameter of the MBB-RCS model can be fit with a skewed Gaussian function with a peak ∼9–10 keV. Lastly, we searched for quasiperiodic spectral oscillations (QPSOs) in the hardness ratio evolution of the bursts. We identified five potential QPSO candidates at frequencies ranging from ∼15 to ∼68 Hz. We discuss and compare these results with previous studies.

SGR J1935+2154 has truly been the most prolific magnetar over the last decade: it has been entering into burst active episodes once every 1–2 yr since its discovery in 2014, it emitted the first Galactic fast radio burst associated with an X-ray burst in 2020, and it has emitted hundreds of energetic short bursts. Here, we present the time-resolved spectral analysis of 51 bright bursts from SGR J1935+2154. Unlike conventional time-resolved X-ray spectroscopic studies in the literature, we follow a two-step approach to probe true spectral evolution. For each burst, we first extract spectral information from overlapping time segments, fit them with three continuum models, and employ a machine-learning-based clustering algorithm to identify time segments that provide the largest spectral variations during each burst. We then extract spectra from those nonoverlapping (clustered) time segments and fit them again with the three models: the cutoff power-law model, the sum of two blackbody functions, and the model considering the emission of a modified blackbody undergoing resonant cyclotron scattering, which is applied systematically at this scale for the first time. Our novel technique allowed us to establish the genuine spectral evolution of magnetar bursts. We discuss the implications of our results and compare their collective behavior with the average burst properties of other magnetars.