A New Model for Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters

Abstract

We consider a model in which the soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) result from young, magnetized strange stars with superconducting cores. As such a strange star spins down, the quantized vortex lines move outward and drag the magnetic field tubes because of the strong coupling between them. Since the terminations of the tubes interact with the stellar crust, the dragged tubes can produce sufficient tension to crack the crust. Part of the broken platelet will be dragged into the quark core, which is only $10^4$ cm from the surface, leading to the deconfinement of crustal matter into strange quark matter and thus the release of energy. We will show that the burst energy, duration, time interval and spectrum for our model are in agreement with the observational results. The persistent X-ray emission from the SGRs can be well explained by our model.