XMM-Newton observations reveal the X-ray counterpart of the very-high-energy gamma-ray source HESSJ1640-465

Abstract

We present X-ray observations of the as of yet unidentified very high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray source HESSJ1640-465 with the aim of establishing a counterpart of this source in the keV energy range, and identifying the mechanism responsible for the VHE emission. The 21.8 ksec XMM-Newton observation of HESSJ1640-465 in September 2005 represents a significant improvement in sensitivity and angular resolution over previous ASCA studies in this region. These new data show a hard-spectrum X-ray emitting object at the centroid of the H.E.S.S. source, within the shell of the radio Supernova Remnant (SNR) G338.3-0.0. This object is consistent with the position and flux previously measured by both ASCA and Swift-XRT but is now shown to be significantly extended. We argue that this object is very likely the counterpart to HESSJ1640-465 and that both objects may represent the Pulsar Wind Nebula of an as of yet undiscovered pulsar associated with G338.3-0.0.

submitted to the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (7)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• Energy dependent gamma-ray morphology in the Pulsar wind nebula HESSJ1825-137
• Inverse Compton Emission from Galactic Supernova Remnants: Effect of the Interstellar Radiation Field
• Inverse Compton Scenarios for the TeV Gamma-Ray Emission of the Galactic Centre
• The dust-enshrouded microquasar candidate AX J1639.0-4642 = IGR J16393-4643
• Orbital Parameters for the X-ray Pulsar IGR J16393-4643
• Swift/XRT follow-up observations of TeV sources of the HESS Inner Galaxy survey

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Teraelectronvolt Astronomy
• The soft gamma-ray pulsar population: an high-energy overview
• NuSTAR Discovery of a Young, Energetic Pulsar Associated with the Luminous Gamma-ray Source HESS J1640-465
• Discovery of the hard spectrum VHE gamma-ray source HESS J1641-463
• Discovery of the Putative Pulsar and Wind Nebula Associated with the TeV Gamma-ray Source HESS J1813-178
• PSR J1856+0245: Arecibo Discovery of a Young, Energetic Pulsar Coincident with the TeV Gamma-ray Source HESS J1857+026
• The GeV-TeV Connection in Galactic gamma-ray sources
• Search for Pulsar Wind Nebula Associations of Unidentified TeV Gamma-Ray Sources
• Interstellar gas towards the TeV gamma-ray sources HESS J1640-465 and HESS J1641-463
• The Norma Arm Region Chandra Survey: X-ray Populations in the Spiral Arms
• Chasing the Identification of ASCA Galactic Objects (ChIcAGO) - An X-ray Survey of Unidentified Sources in the Galactic Plane I: Source Sample and Initial Results
• HESS J1640-465 and HESS J1641-463: two intriguing TeV sources in the light of new Fermi LAT observations
• Observation of an extended VHE gamma-ray emission from MSH 15-52 with CANGAROO-III
• Constraining the origin of the puzzling source HESS J1640-465 and the PeVatron candidate HESS J1641-463 using Fermi-LAT observations
• VHE Gamma-ray supernova remnants
• Broadband X-ray Spectroscopy of the Pulsar Wind Nebula in HESS J1640-465
• Using X-ray observations to identify the particle acceleration mechanisms in VHE SNRs and "dark" VHE sources