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EDP Sciences, Astronomy & Astrophysics, (612), p. A13, 2018

DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201730581

arXiv, 2017

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1711.01350

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HESS J1741-302: A hidden accelerator in the Galactic plane

Journal article published in 2018 by :., F. Ait Benkhali, H. Abdalla, A. Abramowski, J. Becker Tjus, F. Aharonian ORCID, M. Arakawa, C. Armand, M. Arrieta, M. Backes, A. Balzer, E. O. Angüner, M. Barnard ORCID, Y. Becherini, R. Blackwell and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The H.E.S.S. collaboration has discovered a new very high energy (VHE, E $>$ 0.1 TeV) $γ$-ray source, HESS J1741-302, located in the Galactic plane. Despite several attempts to constrain its nature, no plausible counterpart has been found so far at X-ray and MeV/GeV $γ$-ray energies, and the source remains unidentified. An analysis of 145-hour of observations of HESS J1741-302 at VHEs has revealed a steady and relatively weak TeV source ($∼$1$\%$ of the Crab Nebula flux), with a spectral index of $Γ$ = 2.3 $±$ 0.2$_{\text{stat}}$ $±$ 0.2$_{\text{sys}}$, extending to energies up to 10 TeV without any clear signature of a cut-off. In a hadronic scenario, such a spectrum implies an object with particle acceleration up to energies of several hundred TeV. Contrary to most H.E.S.S. unidentified sources, the angular size of HESS J1741-302 is compatible with the H.E.S.S. point spread function at VHEs, with an extension constrained to be below 0.068$^{∘}$ at a 99$\%$ confidence level. The $γ$-ray emission detected by H.E.S.S. can be explained both within a hadronic scenario, due to collisions of protons with energies of hundreds of TeV with dense molecular clouds, and in a leptonic scenario, as a relic pulsar wind nebula, possibly powered by the middle-aged (20 kyr) pulsar PSR B1737-30. A binary scenario, related to the compact radio source 1LC 358.266+0.038 found to be spatially coincident with the best fit position of HESS J1741-302, is also envisaged.