Search for Pulsar Wind Nebula Associations of Unidentified TeV Gamma-Ray Sources

Abstract

Many of the recently discovered TeV gamma-ray sources are associated with pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). In fact, they represent the most populous class of Galactic sources at TeV energies. In addition, HESS has also discovered, in a survey of the Galactic plane, a population of TeV gamma-ray sources that are still without definitive counterparts at longer wavelengths. For a number of these sources, a pulsar is an evident association, which is often located within an extended region of the TeV gamma-ray emission. These particular HESS sources are promising candidates for yet not resolved pulsar wind nebulae. Here we have undertaken a systematic search for X-ray counterparts of the sources, using the archival Chandra data, within the spatial bounds of the unidentified HESS sources. A number of X-ray sources have been detected in the Chandra fields. Two of them, CXOU J161729.3-505512 and CXOU J170252.4-412848, are of a special interest because of their excellent positional coincidence with the pulsars PSR J1617-5055 and PSR J1702-4128, respectively. The first source is extended, with a bright core of 2.6 arcsec (FWHM) in radius but the emission can be seen up to roughly 20 arcsec. The second one is much fainter and detected only with marginal significance (4.6 sigma). It might also be slightly extended, although the situation is quite uncertain due to very limited statistics. The analysis of the archival Chandra data for a middle-aged pulsar (PSR J1913+1011) does not reveal any statistically significant excess at and around the position of the pulsar or the center of gravity of its plausible TeV gamma-ray counterpart (HESS J1912+101). We discuss the implications of the results.