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Session 10 - Gamma-ray Bursts and Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters.
Display session, Monday, January 15
North Banquet Hall, Convention Center
The position of the soft gamma repeater SGR1900+14 was substantially reduced in size by the application of the network synthesis method. The result is two small error boxes. We have conducted ROSAT observations of one of them and found an X-ray source whose position is within the error box. Subsequent ground-based IR observations have revealed a double source which is either two M5I stars at a distance of 14 kpc, or two M5III stars at a distance of 1 kpc. The large extinction towards this system, A_V=19, argues for the larger distance. These stars are also a very bright IRAS source. We speculate that mass tranfer, possibly to a third, compact object in the system, may be responsible for the steady X-ray source, and could also explain the soft gamma-ray bursts. A second ROSAT observation is scheduled for the other network synthesis position, and we will report on the results.
