We present an X-ray study of the field containing the extended TeV source HESS J1834 - 087 using data obtained with the XMM-Newton telescope .
Previously , the coincidence of this source with both the shell-type supernova remnant ( SNR ) W41 and a giant molecular cloud ( GMC ) was interpreted as favoring \pi ^ { 0 } -decay \gamma -rays from interaction of the old SNR with the GMC .
Alternatively , the TeV emission has been attributed to inverse Compton scattering from leptons deposited by PSR J1833 - 0827 , a pulsar assumed to have been born in W41 but now located 24 ^ { \prime } from the center of the SNR ( and the TeV source ) .
Instead , we argue for a third possibility , that the TeV emission is powered by a previously unknown pulsar wind nebula located near the center of W41 .
The candidate pulsar is XMMU J183435.3 - 084443 , a hard X-ray point source that lacks an optical counterpart to R > 21 and is coincident with diffuse X-ray emission .
The X-rays from both the point source and diffuse feature are evidently non-thermal and highly absorbed .
A best fit power-law model yields photon index \Gamma \sim 0.2 and \Gamma \sim 1.9 , for the point source and diffuse emission , respectively , and 2 - 10 keV flux \approx 5 \times 10 ^ { -13 } ergs cm ^ { -2 } s ^ { -1 } for each .
At the measured 4 kpc distance of W41 , the observed X-ray luminosity implies an energetic pulsar with \dot { E } \sim 10 ^ { 36 } d _ { 4 } ^ { 2 } ergs s ^ { -1 } , which is also sufficient to generate the observed \gamma -ray luminosity of 2.7 \times 10 ^ { 34 } d _ { 4 } ^ { 2 } ergs s ^ { -1 } via inverse Compton scattering .