Dust scattering halo around the CCO in HESS J1731–347: A detailed analysis

Abstract

The supernova remnant (SNR) HESS J1731−347 is one of the few objects exhibiting emission up to the TeV energy band and it stands as a prime target for the study of cosmic ray acceleration in SNRs. It also hosts a central compact object (CCO), which is of interest in the context of the ultra-dense matter equation of state in neutron stars. For both types of studies, however, the parameters of the respective models depend crucially on the assumed distance to the object and are affected to a certain extent by the assumed interstellar medium (ISM) properties around the SNR. Here, we report on the first quantitative analysis of the properties of the compact X-ray dust scattering halo that is assumed to be present around the CCO based on Chandra observations of the source. Our findings unambiguously confirm the presence of a compact halo around the CCO, and we show that the observed halo properties are consistent with expectations from independent measurements of the dust distribution along the line of sight and the distance to the source. Although we were not able to significantly improve those constraints, our results are important for future studies of the CCO itself. Indeed, the halo contribution is expected to affect the X-ray spectrum and the derived parameters of the neutron star when observed with moderate angular resolutions. Our results, which offer a quantitative characterization of the halo properties, will be useful in accounting for this effect.