Copyright © 2009 Denis Leahy and Rachid Ouyed. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

We present new analysis of the birth rate of AXPs and SGRS and their associated SNRs. Using Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistics together with parametric fits based on a robust estimator, we find a birth rate of ∼1/(1000 years) for AXPs/SGRs and their associated SNRs. These high rates suggest that all massive stars (greater than ∼(23–32)M⊙) give rise to remnants with magnetar-like fields. Observations indicate a limited fraction of high magnetic fields in these progenitors; thus our study is suggestive of magnetic field amplification. Dynamo mechanisms during the birth of the neutron stars require spin rates much faster than either observations or theory indicate. We propose that massive stars produce neutron stars with normal (∼1012 G) magnetic fields, which are then amplified to 1014-1015 G after a delay of hundreds of years. The amplification is speculated to be a consequence of color ferromagnetism and to occur with a delay after the neutron star core reaches quark deconfinement density (i.e., the quark-nova scenario). The delayed amplification allows one to interpret simultaneously the high birth rate and high magnetic fields of AXPs/SGRs and their link to massive stars.