The origin of the strong magnetic fields measured in magnetars is one of the
main uncertainties in the neutron star field. On the other hand, the recent
discovery of a large number of such strongly magnetized neutron stars, is
calling for more investigation on their formation. The first proposed model for
the formation of such strong magnetic fields in magnetars was through
alpha-dynamo effects on the rapidly rotating core of a massive star. Other
scenarios involve highly magnetic massive progenitors that conserve their
strong magnetic moment into the core after the explosion, or a common envelope
phase of a massive binary system. In this work, we do a complete re-analysis of
the archival X-ray emission of the Supernova Remnants (SNR) surrounding
magnetars, and compare our results with all other bright X-ray emitting SNRs,
which are associated with Compact Central Objects (CCOs; which are proposed to
have magnetar-like B-fields buried in the crust by strong accretion soon after
their formation), high-B pulsars and normal pulsars. We find that emission
lines in SNRs hosting highly magnetic neutron stars do not differ significantly
in elements or ionization state from those observed in other SNRs, neither
averaging on the whole remnants, nor studying different parts of their total
spatial extent. Furthermore, we find no significant evidence that the total
X-ray luminosities of SNRs hosting magnetars, are on average larger than that
of typical young X-ray SNRs. Although biased by a small number of objects, we
found that for a similar age, there is the same percentage of magnetars showing
a detectable SNR than for the normal pulsar population.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA