Spin Period of New Soft Gamma Repeater SGR 0501+4516
ATel #1677; E. Gogus (Sabanci Univ.), P. Woods (Dynetics), & C. Kouveliotou (NASA/MSFC), on behalf of a larger collaboration:
on 22 Aug 2008; 21:21 UT
Credential Certification: Peter Woods (Peter.Woods@dynetics.com)
Subjects: X-ray, Soft Gamma-ray Repeater, Pulsar
We triggered our SGR ToO Program with RXTE following the Swift detection
of a burst from the new Soft Gamma Repeater SGR 0501+4516 (Barthelmy et
al. 2008, GCN # 8113). A 600 s RXTE observation started on 2008 August
22, 16:39:09 UT. During this pointing we detected one short SGR
burst-like event in the PCA data (2-60 keV), confirming that the new
source was in the field of view. We searched for a spin period for the
new SGR in the 2.5-13.5 keV band PCA event mode data and detected a
coherent signal (barycenter corrected) at 0.17334 Hz, corresponding to a
spin period of 5.769 ± 0.004 s.
A longer RXTE observation of SGR 0501+4516 is currently underway. We thank
RXTE planner, Divya Pereira for prompt scheduling.
