IGRJ18179-1621: An obscured X-ray pulsar discovered by INTEGRAL

Abstract

We report on all the INTEGRAL and Swift data collected during the first outburst observed from IGRJ18179-1621. The broad-band spectral analysis showed that the X-ray emission from the source is heavily absorbed (N_H~10^23 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\pm1 keV. Together with the pulsations at 11.8s discovered in the XRT data, this evidence would suggest that IGRJ18179-1621 is an obscured magnetized accreting neutron star, possibly part of a supergiant high mass X-ray binary or a Be X-ray binary system.