GCN Circular 1056

P. Woods (USRA/NSSTC), C. Kouveliotou (NASA/MSFC), and E. Gogus
(UAH/NSSTC) report on behalf of a larger collaboration.

ToO observations of SGR 1900+14 with the Rossi XTE were initiated on
April 19, 2001 and have continued through April 28.  Thus far, more
than 60 bursts have been detected in ~110 ks of exposure time. 
Coincidentally, a short (~10 ks) observation of SGR 1900+14 was
performed on April 14 (4 days prior to the flare) as part of our
ongoing monitoring campaign.  We find no burst activity within this
observation.  For the latest observation on April 28, 4 bursts were
recorded in one RXTE orbit, thus the source remains burst active.

Selecting a 6 day subset of these observations for which we have
spacecraft ephemeris information, we have phase connected the data and
measured both a period and period derivative.  We chose our epoch (MJD
52021.3 TDB) to coincide with the first Chandra observation.  We
measure a barycentric period of 5.1728219(14) s where the number given
in the parentheses marks the 1 sigma error in the least significant
digits.  The period derivative is found to be +1.58(22) X 10E-10 s/s. 
The ephemeris we find agrees well with the measured periods reported
for both the Chandra (GCN #1049) and BeppoSAX (GCN #1055)
observations.  Furthermore, the magnitude of the spindown found here
is well within the range of historical spindown rates measured for
this SGR.

This message may be cited.