XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of the unidentified Fermi-LAT source 3FGL J1016.5-6034: A Young Pulsar with a Nebula?

Abstract

We report the discovery of a bright X-ray source in the XMM-Newton and Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO) images of the unidentified Fermi-LAT source 3FGL J1016.5-6034. The XMM-Newton spectrum of the source is well fit by an absorbed blackbody+power-law model with a temperature, $kT=0.20\pm 0.02$ keV, and photon index $\Gamma =1.8\pm 0.1$. The CXO resolves the same source into a point source (CXOU J101546.0-602939) and a surrounding compact nebula seen up to about $30^{\prime \prime }$ from the point source. The CXO spectrum of the nebula can be described by an absorbed power-law with $\Gamma =1.7\pm 0.3$ and is partly responsible for the non-thermal emission observed in the XMM-Newton spectrum. The XMM-Newton images also reveal faint extended emission on arcminute scales. These properties strongly suggest that the X-ray source and the accompanying extended emission are a newly discovered young pulsar with a pulsar wind nebula. We also analyze $\sim 10$ years of Fermi-LAT data and find that the improved LAT source localization is consistent with the position of CXOU J101546.0-602939.

Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• A Catalog of Galactic Supernova Remnants and Supernova Remnant Candidates from the EMU/POSSUM Radio Sky Surveys. I
• XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of the candidate Fermi-LAT pulsar 4FGL J1015.5-6030