WISE Non-Detection of the AXP 4U 0142+61 at Mid-IR Wavelengths
ATel #3519; J. Yu (Huadong Normal Univ., China) & Z. Wang (SHAO, China)
on 29 Jul 2011; 09:28 UT
Credential Certification: Z. Wang (wangzx@shao.ac.cn)
Subjects: Infra-Red, Neutron Star
Mid-IR imaging of the field of the anomalous X-ray pulsar (AXP) 4U 0142+61 was
carried out with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) between
2010 Feb. 3-7 at WISE bands 3.4, 4.6, 11.6, and 22.1 microns
(Wright et al. 2010, ApJ, 140, 1868). We analyzed
the four band images of the source field from the WISE preliminary data
release (http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/prelim/index.html).
No IR counterpart to 4U 0142+61 was detected in the images.
The average depth-of-coverage values at the source position were
approximately 16 pixels at the four bands (corresponding to ~120-140 sec
on-source exposure time). We derived the flux upper limits on the AXP,
which are 0.075, 0.12, 0.34, and1.42 mJy (3-sigma), respectively.
The none-detection is consistent with the AXP's Mid-IR fluxes and flux upper
limits obtained with Spitzer IRAC, IRS, and MIPS (Wang & Kaspi 2008, ApJ, 695;
Wang et al. 2008, AIPC, 983, 274).
