NuSTAR Discovery of a Young, Energetic Pulsar Associated with the Luminous Gamma-Ray Source HESS J1640-465
Abstract
We report the discovery of a 206 ms pulsar associated with the TeV γ-ray source HESS J1640-465 using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) X-ray observatory. PSR J1640-4631 lies within the shell-type supernova remnant (SNR) G338.3-0.0, and coincides with an X-ray point source and putative pulsar wind nebula (PWN) previously identified in XMM-Newton and Chandra images. It is spinning down rapidly with period derivative \dot{P} = 9.758(44) × 10-13, yielding a spin-down luminosity \dot{E} = 4.4 × 1036 erg s-1, characteristic age \tau _c \equiv P/2\dot{P} = 3350 yr, and surface dipole magnetic field strength Bs = 1.4 × 1013 G. For the measured distance of 12 kpc to G338.3-0.0, the 0.2-10 TeV luminosity of HESS J1640-465 is 6% of the pulsar's present \dot{E}. The Fermi source 1FHL J1640.5-4634 is marginally coincident with PSR J1640-4631, but we find no γ-ray pulsations in a search using five years of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data. The pulsar energetics support an evolutionary PWN model for the broadband spectrum of HESS J1640-465, provided that the pulsar's braking index is n ≈ 2, and that its initial spin period was P 0 ~ 15 ms.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- June 2014
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0004-637X/788/2/155
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1405.0465
- Bibcode:
- 2014ApJ...788..155G
- Keywords:
-
- ISM: individual objects: G338.3–0.0 HESS J1640–465 1FHL J1640.5–4634 AX J1640.7–4632 XMMU J164045.4–463131;
- ISM: supernova remnants;
- pulsars: individual: PSR J1640-4631;
- stars: neutron;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- 9 pages, 5 figures, 5 tables, Latex emulatapj style. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal