SGR 0755-2933: a new High Mass X-ray binary with the wrong name
A new paper building upon
our earlier work on accretion in magnetars has just been published.
The soft gamma-ray repeater candidate SGR 0755-2933 was discovered in 2016 by
Swift/BAT, which detected a short (~30 ms) powerful burst typical of
magnetars. To understand the nature of the source, we analyzed follow-up
observations of the tentative soft X-ray counterpart of the source obtained
with Swift/XRT, NuSTAR and Chandra. As a result we found that based on the
observed counterpart position and properties, it is actually not a soft gamma
ray repeater but rather a new high mass X-ray binary. We suggest to refer to it
as 2SXPS J075542.5-293353 while the true soft X-ray counterpart
to the burst event remain a mystery. Presence of a soft counterpart is, however, essential to
unambiguously associate the burst with a magnetar flare, and thus we conclude
that magnetar origin of SRG 0755-2933 requires further investigation.
