2005/05/04 by R. Mukherjee, J. P. Halpern · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope #Flux (metallurgy) #Galactic plane #Galaxy #Observatory #Physics #Point source #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #ROSAT #Stars #Supernova #Supernova remnant #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/431581
published as Astrophys.J. 629 (2005) 1017-1020 · Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
arxiv created 2005/05/04 · openalex publication_date 2005/08/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The imaging atmospheric Cerenkov array HESS recently discovered an extended source in the 0.4-10 TeV energy range, HESS J1303-631. We obtained a 5 ks observation with the ACIS-I array on the Chandra X-Ray Observatory that does not reveal an obvious compact or diffuse X-ray counterpart. Archival ROSAT images are also blank in this region. Although there are several radio pulsars within the field of HESS J1303-631, none is detected in X-rays to a flux limit of <5 × 10 -14 ergs cm -2 s -1 , and none is a likely counterpart on energetic grounds. Over the entire 17' × 17' ACIS-I field, we place an upper limit of <5.4 × 10 -12 ergs cm -2 s -1 on the excess diffuse flux in the 2-10 keV band. One hard point source with flux ≈4 × 10 -14 ergs cm -2 s -1 lies within 0 5 of the centroid of the TeV emission. These exploratory observations suggest that deeper pointings with Chandra and XMM-Newton are needed before we can learn more about the nature of HESS J1303-631. Its similarity to the unidentified source TeV J2032+4130 indicates the probable existence of a new class of high-energy source in the Galactic plane that originates from young, massive stars or their supernova remnants.