2018/05/22 by Shuo Zhang, Xiaping Tang, Xiao Zhang +13 · 16 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Black-body radiation #Cutoff #Ejecta #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Molecular cloud #Optics #Physics #Power law #Pulsar #Pulsar wind nebula #Radiation #Spectral line #Stars #Supernova #Supernova remnant #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aabe7c
published in The Astrophysical Journal 859(2), 141 (IOP Publishing) · 10 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2018/05/22 · openalex publication_date 2018/06/01 · arxiv updated 2018/06/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract We report on a broadband study of a complex X-ray source (1SAX J0618.0+2227) associated with the interaction site of the supernova remnant (SNR) IC 443 and ambient molecular cloud (MC) using NuSTAR , XMM-Newton , and Chandra observations. Its X-ray spectrum is composed of both thermal and nonthermal components. The thermal component can be equally well represented by either a thin plasma model with kT = 0.19 keV or a blackbody model with kT = 0.11 keV. The nonthermal component can be fit with either a power law with Γ ∼ 1.7 or a cutoff power law with Γ ∼ 1.5 and a cutoff energy at E cut ∼ 18 keV. Using the newly obtained NuSTAR data set, we test three possible scenarios for isolated X-ray sources in the SNR–MC interaction site: (1) a pulsar wind nebula (PWN); (2) an SNR ejecta fragment; and (3) a shocked molecular clump. We conclude that this source is most likely composed of an SNR ejecta (or a PWN) and surrounding shocked molecular clumps. The nature of this hard X-ray source in the SNR–MC interaction site of IC 443 may shed light on unidentified X-ray sources with hard X-ray spectra in rich environments for star-forming regions, such as the Galactic center.