CHANDRA OBSERVATION OF HESSJ1640-465 REVEALS AN X-RAY NEBULA AND ITS PUTATIVE PULSAR

ANNE LEMIERE (CFA-Harvard) , A. Lemiere, P. Slane , B. Gaensler

During 2004-2006 H.E.S.S. performed a survey of the inner part of the Galaxy where its excellent capability allowed to mark a breakthrough in the field of PWN study: for the first time the morphological structure of many pulsar wind nebulae (PWN) was resolved in the gamma-ray band. We present here a Chandra X-ray observation of one of these sources which fills the center of the SNR G338.3-0.0: HESSJ1640-465. We resolve a point source surrounded by a diffuse emission that fills the centroid of the HESS source, within the shell of the radio supernova remnant. The morphology of the diffuse emission strongly resembles that of a PWN and extends assymetrically in the South East part of the point source that we designate as the putative pulsar. We explore the morphological and spectral characteristics of this object and discuss their implications in term of energies and interaction with the surrounding environment. We finally discuss a scenario in which the gamma-rays originate from this object in term of a time-dependent leptonic model.