Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Scientific paper
2009-12-04
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters, 13 pages with 4 figures
Scientific paper
New generation TeV gamma-ray telescopes have discovered many new sources, including several enigmatic unidentified TeV objects. HESS J0632+057 is a particularly interesting unidentified TeV source since: it is a point source, it has a possible hard-spectrum X-ray counterpart and a positionally consistent Be star, it has evidence of long-term VHE flux variability, and it is postulated to be a newly detected TeV/X-ray binary. We have obtained Swift X-ray telescope observations of this source from MJD 54857 to 54965, in an attempt to ascertain its nature and to investigate the hypothesis that it's a previously unknown X-ray/TeV binary. Variability and spectral properties similar to those of the other 3 known X-ray/TeV binaries have been observed, with measured flux increases by factors of approximately 3. X-ray variability is present on multiple timescales including days to months; however, no clear signature of periodicity is present on the timescales probed by these data. If binary modulation is present and dominating the measured variability, then the period of the orbit is likely to be more than 54 days (half of this campaign), or it has a shorter period with a variable degree of flux modulation on successive high states. If the two high states measured to date are due to binary modulation, then the favored period is approximately 35-40 days. More observations are required to determine if this object is truly a binary system and to determine the extent that the measured variability is due to inter-orbit flaring effects or periodic binary modulation.
Falcone Abe D.
Grube Jeff
Hinton Jim
Holder Jamie
Maier Gernot
No associations
LandOfFree
Probing the Nature of the unidentified TeV Gamma-ray source HESS J0632+057 with Swift does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Probing the Nature of the unidentified TeV Gamma-ray source HESS J0632+057 with Swift, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Probing the Nature of the unidentified TeV Gamma-ray source HESS J0632+057 with Swift will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-706355