Chandra Observations of the Transient 7 s X-ray Pulsar AX J1845.0–0258

We present the results of Chandra X-Ray Observatory observations of the transient anomalous X-ray pulsar candidate AX J1845.0-0258 in apparent quiescence. Within the source's error circle, we find a point source and possible counterpart, which we designate CXOU J184454.6-025653. No coherent pulsations are detected, and no extended emission is seen. The source's spectrum is equally well described by a blackbody model of temperature kT ~ 2.0 keV or a power-law model with photon index Γ ~ 1.0. This is considerably harder than was seen for AX J1845.0-0258 during its period of brightening in 1993 (kT ~ 0.6 keV) despite being at least ~13 times fainter. This behavior is opposite to that observed in the case of the established transient AXP, XTE J1810-197. We therefore explore the possibility that CXOU J184454.6-025653 is an unrelated source and that AX J1845.0-0258 remains undetected since 1993, with a flux 260-430 times fainter than at that epoch. If so, this would represent an unprecedented range of variability in AXPs.