HIGH-RESOLUTION X-RAY OBSERVATIONS OF THE PULSAR WIND NEBULA ASSOCIATED WITH THE GAMMA-RAY SOURCE HESS J1640-465

Journal Article · Mon Nov 30 23:00:00 EST 2009 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/706/2/1269· OSTI ID:21378088

Lemiere, A; Slane, P; Murray, S ^[1]; Gaensler, B M ^[2]

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1. Harvard-Smithonian Center For Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
2. Institute of Astronomy, School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006 (Australia)

We present a Chandra X-ray observation of the very high energy gamma-ray source HESS J1640 - 465. We identify a point source surrounded by a diffuse emission that fills the extended object previously detected by XMM-Newton at the centroid of the HESS source, within the shell of the radio supernova remnant (SNR) G338.3 - 0.0. The morphology of the diffuse emission strongly resembles that of a pulsar wind nebula (PWN) and extends asymmetrically to the southwest of a point source presented as a potential pulsar. The spectrum of the putative pulsar and compact nebula are well characterized by an absorbed power-law model which, for a reasonable N{sub H} value of 14 x 10{sup 22} cm{sup -2}, exhibit an index of 1.1 and 2.5 respectively, typical of Vela-like PWNe. We demonstrate that, given the H I absorption features observed along the line of sight, the SNR and the H II surrounding region are probably connected and lie between 8 kpc and 13 kpc. The resulting age of the system is between 10 and 30 kyr. For a 10 kpc distance (also consistent with the X-ray absorption) the 2-10 keV X-ray luminosities of the putative pulsar and nebula are L{sub PSR} approx 1.3 x 10{sup 33} d {sup 2}{sub 10kpc} erg s{sup -1} and L{sub PWN} approx 3.9 x 10{sup 33} d {sup 2}{sub 10} erg s{sup -1} (d {sub 10} = d/10 kpc). Both the flux ratio of L {sub PWN}/L{sub PSR} approx 3.4 and the total luminosity of this system predict a pulsar spin-down power around E-dotapprox4 x 10{sup 36} erg s{sup -1}. We finally consider several reasons for the asymmetries observed in the PWN morphology and discuss the potential association with the HESS source in terms of a time-dependent one-zone leptonic model.

• OSTI ID: 21378088
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 706; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ABSORPTION
COSMIC GAMMA SOURCES
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
COSMIC RAY SOURCES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EMISSION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
LUMINOSITY
NEBULAE
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
POINT SOURCES
PULSARS
RADIATION SOURCES
RADIATIONS
SORPTION
SUPERNOVA REMNANTS
TIME DEPENDENCE
X RADIATION