OREANDA-NEWS. May 22, 2009. In Russian-American experiment KONUS-WIND there were obtained the high priority data on temporal and spectral characteristics of a new source of soft repeating gamma-bursts - gamma repeater SGR 0501+4516. According to the present conseptions gamma-repeaters are a vary rare class ¬¬of single neutron stars with super strong magnetic fields.

Two first gamma-repeaters were discovered in March 1979 during a research performed by Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Science onboard interplanetary spacecraft “Venera 11-12”, created by S.A. Lavochkin Association . Now the observation of gamma-repeaters is a separate field in high energy astrophysics involving the research of a behavior of the matter in its extreme state, unreachable in laboratory conditions: at super high density and in super strong magnetic fields. By the August 2008 there were known four gamma-repeaters.

A new one, the fifth repeater was discovered on August 22, 2008 by NASA mission Swift, the discovery was independently confirmed by observations in the experiments for gamma-bursts research KONUS-WIND and Fermi-GMB, by data from X-ray telescope RXTE, SUZAKU-XIS and XMM-Newton. In KONUS-WIND experiment, which has been successfully carried out during 14,5 years at optimal conditions of interplanetary space onboard the US spacecraft ‘WIND’ with Russian instrument KONUS, five intensive short pulses from the new repeater were registered and thoroughly investigated.

Detailed light curves and energy spectra from the new source have manifested a strong hardness and intensity correlation in emission of the repeater within 20keV – 300keV energy range. The similar spectral variability is untypical for gamma-repeaters and earlier in the KONUS-WIND experiment it was observed only in gamma-repeater SGR 1627-41 in 1998yr. Another special feature of all the pulses observed from SGR 0501+4516 is their extraordinary high peak flux. This fact confirms the assumption that the new gamma-repeater is located considerably closer to the Solar system than other known astrophysical objects of the type. The results of the investigation of the new gamma-repeater SGR 0501+4516 in frames of the KONUS-WIND experiment are accepted to be published in an international astrophysical journal and they are available at the internet site of Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Science.