Chandra localization of the soft gamma repeater in the Galactic Center region

ATel #5032; N. Rea (CSIC-IEEC), P. Esposito, G. L. Israel (INAF), A. Papitto (CSIC-IEEC), A. Tiengo (IUSS/INAF), F. Baganoff (MIT), D. Haggard (Northwestern/CIERA), S. Mereghetti, M. Burgay, A. Possenti (INAF), S. Zane (MSSL), on behalf of a larger collaboration
on 30 Apr 2013; 21:53 UT
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Credential Certification: Nanda Rea (rea@ieec.uab.es)

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We have observed the new X-ray pulsar discovered near the Galactic Center using the High Resolution Camera (HRC-S) onboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory on April 29, 2013 for ~10ks.

In a preliminary analysis we detected the new soft gamma repeater at a count rate of ~0.087 c/s . The new source position is:

RA 17:45:40.19, Dec: -29:00:30.37 (with a 0.3" 1sigma statistical error; not boresight corrected).

This position lies at ~3" from the best Chandra position of SgrA* (Nowak et al. 2012), which is instead not detected in our observation. Furthermore, we confirm the spin period of ~3.76s, and the triple-peaked pulse profile, as observed by NUSTAR (Mori et al. 2013, Atel #5020).

This observation confirms the presence of a new soft gamma repeater as responsible for the SGR-like flare observed by Swift-BAT (Kennea et al. 2013, Atel #5009), while SgrA* does not appear to be in a X-ray flaring active state.

Further Chandra observations are planned to follow this new source during its outburst decay.

Chandra image: left image is the new HRC-S observation; right image is an archival ACIS-S image (obsid:13017)