Research Note

IGR J18179-1621: an obscured X-ray pulsar discovered by INTEGRAL ^⋆

E. Bozzo¹, C. Ferrigno¹, M. Türler¹, A. Manousakis¹ and M. Falanga²

¹ ISDC, Data Center for Astrophysics of the University of Geneva, chemin d’Écogia 16, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
e-mail: enrico.bozzo@unige.ch
² International Space Science Institute (ISSI), Hallerstrasse 6, 3012 Bern, Switzerland

Received: 4 April 2012
Accepted: 19 July 2012

Abstract

We report on all the INTEGRAL and Swift data collected during the first outburst observed from IGR J18179-1621. The broad-band spectral analysis showed that the X-ray emission from the source is heavily absorbed (N_H ≃ 10²³ cm^-2), and well-described by a flat power-law with a high energy rollover (cutoff energy 9−12 keV, e-folding energy 4−7 keV). We found some evidence of a cyclotron absorption feature at 22 ± 1 keV. Together with the pulsations at 11.8 s discovered in the XRT data, this evidence would suggest that IGR J18179-1621 is an obscured, magnetized, accreting neutron star that is possibly part of a supergiant high-mass X-ray binary or a Be X-ray binary system.