2007ApJ...665L..55T

We present the unsaturated peak profile of the giant flare from SGR 1900+14 on 1998 August 27. This was obtained by the particle counters of the Low Energy Particles instrument on board the Geotail spacecraft. The observed peak profile revealed four characteristic features: an initial steep rise, an intermediate rise to the peak, an exponential decay, and a small hump in the decay phase. From this light curve, we found that the isotropic peak luminosity was 2.3x10⁴⁶ ergs/s and that the total energy was 4.3x10⁴⁴ ergs/s (E≳50 keV), assuming that the distance to SGR 1900+14 is 15 kpc and that the spectrum is optically thin thermal bremsstrahlung with kT=240 keV. These values are consistent with the previously reported lower limits derived from Ulysses and Konus-Wind observations. A comparative study of the initial spikes of the SGR 1900+14 giant flare in 1998 and of the SGR 1806-20 giant flare in 2004 is also presented. The timescale of the initial steep rise shows a magnetospheric origin, while the timescale of the intermediate rise to the peak indicates that it originates from crustal fracturing. Finally, we argue that the four features and their corresponding timescales provide us with a clue to identify extragalactic soft gamma-ray repeater giant flares among short gamma-ray bursts.