Search for an Near-IR Counterpart to the Cas A X-ray Point Source

Abstract

We report deep near-infrared and optical observations of the X-ray point source in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, CXO J232327.9+584842. We have identified a J=21.4 +/- 0.3 mag and Ks=20.5 +/- 0.3 mag source within the 1-sigma error circle, but we believe this source is a foreground Pop II star with Teff=2600-2800 K at a distance of ~2 kpc, which could not be the X-ray point source. We do not detect any sources in this direction at the distance of Cas A, and therefore place 3-sigma limits of R >~ 25 mag, F675W >~ 27.3 mag, J >~ 22.5 mag and Ks >~ 21.2 mag (and roughly H >~ 20 mag) on emission from the X-ray point source, corresponding to M_{R} >~ 8.2 mag, M_{F675W} >~ 10.7 mag, M_{J} >~ 8.5 mag, M_{H} >~ 6.5 mag, and M_{Ks} >~ 8.0 mag, assuming a distance of 3.4 kpc and an extinction A_{V}=5 mag.

14 pages, 7 figures. Accepted by ApJ

References in corpus (1)

• An Optical Counterpart to the Anomalous X-ray Pulsar 4U 0142+61

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• Pulsar Spindown by a Fall-Back Disk and the P-P_dot Diagram
• Near-Infrared and Optical Limits for the Central X-ray Point Source in the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant
• Cas A and the Crab Were Not Stellar Binaries At Death
• The X-ray Source at the Center of the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant
• Is the Compact Source at the Center of Cas A Pulsed?
• A Search for Fallback Disks in Four Young Supernova Remnants
• The influence of fallback discs on the spectral and timing properties of neutron stars
• On Period and Burst Histories of AXPs and SGRs and the Possible Evolution of these Objects on the P-Pdot Diagram