EVIDENCE FOR A LOW-LUMINOSITY X-RAY PULSAR ASSOCIATED WITH A SUPERNOVA REMNANT

The discovery of two X-ray sources located in Serpens Cauda near the galactic plane at longitude l(II) almost-equal-to 29-degrees consisting of a point source embedded in diffuse emission is reported here. The point source appears to be a pulsating neutron star (NS) with a period of about 5.45 s. An unidentified possible optical counterpart found in the Guide Star Catalogue (GSC) may point to a companion of the NS which together may form an X-ray binary star system. The diffuse X-ray emission, covering a region of 80' x 50' on the sky, was identified by non-thermal radio radiation as supernova remnant (SNR). Both sources may have had a common origin in a supernova event, which occurred about 32 000 years ago at a distance of at most 4 kpc. The image of the detection is shown in Fig. 1.