Possible Periodic Activity in the Short Bursts of SGR 1806-20: Connection to Fast Radio Bursts

Magnetars are highly magnetized neutron stars that are characterized by recurrent emission of short-duration bursts in soft gamma-rays/hard X-rays. Recently, FRB 200428 was found to be associated with an X-ray burst from a Galactic magnetar. Two fast radio bursts show mysterious periodic activity. However, it is unclear whether magnetar X-ray bursts are periodic phenomena. In this paper, we investigate the activity period of SGR 1806-20. More than 3000 short bursts observed by different telescopes are collected, including the observations of RXTE, HETE-2, ICE, and Konus. We consider the observation windows and divide the data into two subsamples to alleviate the effect of uneven sampling. The epoch-folding and Lomb–Scargle methods are used to derive the period of the short bursts. We find a possible period of about 398.20 ± 25.45 days, but other peaks exist in the periodograms. If the period is real, the connection between short bursts of magnetars and fast radio bursts should be investigated extensively.