Seminar
Magnetar candidates: new discoveries open new questions

Abstract

I will review our current knowledge of soft gamma repeaters (SGR) and anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXP), two peculiar classes of pulsars believed to be 'magnetars', i.e. neutron stars powered by a huge magnetic field. Recent studies of transient events from SGRs and AXPs allowed a large jump in our understanding of these objects, although they also prompted new unanswered questions. In particular, the recent discovery of a low magnetic field magnetar is causing a re-think of some of the basic ingredients of the magnetar model.