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ABSTRACT Extremely bright coherent radio bursts with millisecond duration, reminiscent of cosmological fast radio bursts, were codetected with anomalously-hard X-ray bursts from a Galactic magnetar SGR 1935 + 2154. We investigate the possibility that the event was triggered by the magnetic energy injection inside the magnetosphere, thereby producing magnetically-trapped fireball (FB) and relativistic outflows simultaneously. The thermal component of the X-ray burst is consistent with a trapped FB with an average temperature of ∼200–300 keV and size of ∼105 cm. Meanwhile, the non-thermal component of the X-ray burst and the coherent radio burst may arise from relativistic outflows. We calculate the dynamical evolution of the outflow, launched with an energy budget of 1039–1040 erg comparable to that for the trapped FB, for different initial baryon load η and magnetization σ0. If hard X-ray and radio bursts are both produced by the energy dissipation of the outflow, the outflow properties are constrained by combining the conditions for photon escape and the intrinsic timing offset ≲ 10 ms among radio and X-ray burst spikes. We show that the hard X-ray burst must be generated at rX ≳ 108 cm from the magnetar, irrespective of the emission mechanism. Moreover, we find that the outflow quickly accelerates up to a Lorentz factor of 102 ≲ Γ ≲ 103 by the time it reaches the edge of the magnetosphere and the dissipation occurs at 1012 cm ≲ rradio, X ≲ 1014 cm. Our results imply either extremely-clean (η ≳ 104) or highly-magnetized (σ0 ≳ 103) outflows, which might be consistent with the rarity of the phenomenon. 

Luminosity evolution of some stripped-envelope supernovae such as Type I superluminous supernovae is difficult to explain by the canonical 56Ni nuclear decay heating. A popular alternative heating source is rapid spin-down of strongly magnetized rapidly rotating neutron stars (magnetars). Recent observations have indicated that Type I superluminous supernovae often have bumpy light curves with multiple luminosity peaks. The cause of bumpy light curves is unknown. In this study, we investigate the possibility that the light-curve bumps are caused by variations of the thermal energy injection from magnetar spin-down. We find that a temporal increase in the thermal energy injection can lead to multiple luminosity peaks. The multiple luminosity peaks caused by the variable thermal energy injection is found to be accompanied by significant increase in photospheric temperature, and photospheric radii are not significantly changed. We show that the bumpy light curves of SN 2015bn and SN 2019stc can be reproduced by temporarily increasing magnetar spin-down energy input by a factor of 2–3 for 5–20 d. However, not all the light-curve bumps are accompanied by the clear photospheric temperature increase as predicted by our synthetic models. In particular, the secondary light-curve bump of SN 2019stc is accompanied by a temporal increase in photospheric radii rather than temperature, which is not seen in our synthetic models. We therefore conclude that not all the light-curve bumps observed in luminous supernovae are caused by the variable thermal energy injection from magnetar spin-down and some bumps are likely caused by a different mechanism.

 

ABSTRACT Fast-rotating pulsars and magnetars have been suggested as the central engines of superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) and fast radio bursts, and this scenario naturally predicts non-thermal synchrotron emission from their nascent pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). We report results of high-frequency radio observations with ALMA and NOEMA for three SLSNe (SN 2015bn, SN 2016ard, and SN 2017egm), and present a detailed theoretical model to calculate non-thermal emission from PWNe with an age of ∼1−3 yr. We find that the ALMA data disfavours a PWN model motivated by the Crab nebula for SN 2015bn and SN 2017egm, and argue that this tension can be resolved if the nebular magnetization is very high or very low. Such models can be tested by future MeV–GeV gamma-ray telescopes such as AMEGO.