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Published March 21, 2018 | Version Supplemental Material + Published + Accepted Version
Journal Article Open

PSR J2322−2650 – a low-luminosity millisecond pulsar with a planetary-mass companion

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Swinburne University of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy
  • 3. ROR icon International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research
  • 4. ROR icon Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari
  • 5. ROR icon Australia Telescope National Facility
  • 6. ROR icon University of Manchester
  • 7. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 8. ROR icon University of British Columbia
  • 9. ROR icon Auckland University of Technology
  • 10. ROR icon Bielefeld University

Abstract

We present the discovery of a binary millisecond pulsar (MSP), PSR J2322−2650, found in the southern section of the High Time Resolution Universe survey. This system contains a 3.5-ms pulsar with a ∼10^(−3) M_⊙ companion in a 7.75-h circular orbit. Follow-up observations at the Parkes and Lovell telescopes have led to precise measurements of the astrometric and spin parameters, including the period derivative, timing parallax, and proper motion. PSR J2322−2650 has a parallax of 4.4 ± 1.2 mas, and is thus at an inferred distance of 230^(+90)_(−50) pc, making this system a candidate for optical studies. We have detected a source of R ≈ 26.4 mag at the radio position in a single R-band observation with the Keck telescope, and this is consistent with the blackbody temperature we would expect from the companion if it fills its Roche lobe. The intrinsic period derivative of PSR J2322−2650 is among the lowest known, 4.4(4) × 10^(−22) s s^(−1), implying a low surface magnetic field strength, 4.0(4) × 10^7 G. Its mean radio flux density of 160 μJy combined with the distance implies that its radio luminosity is the lowest ever measured, 0.008(5) mJy kpc^2. The inferred population of these systems in the Galaxy may be very significant, suggesting that this is a common MSP evolutionary path.

Additional Information

© 2017 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Accepted 2017 November 30. Received 2017 November 21; in original form 2017 August 10. We thank I. Andreoni for his assistance with reduction of the optical data, and P. Esposito for his advice regarding the X-ray data analysis. We also thank the anonymous referee for useful comments that significantly improved the paper. This research was funded partially by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council, grants CE170100004 (OzGrav) and FL150100148. MK's research is supported by the ERC Synergy Grant 'BlackHoleCam: Imaging the Event Horizon of Black Holes' (Grant 610058). The Parkes radio telescope is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility that is funded by the Australian Government for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. Pulsar research at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics and the observations using the Lovell Telescope are supported by a consolidated grant from the STFC in the UK. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. This work used the gSTAR national facility that is funded by Swinburne and the Australian Government's Education Investment Fund. This research made use of ASTROPY, a community-developed core PYTHON package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration, 2013), and the MATPLOTLIB package (v1.5.1; Hunter 2007).

Attached Files

Published - stx3157.pdf

Accepted Version - 1712.04445

Supplemental Material - stx3157_supp.zip

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
85760
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20180411-135403772

Related works

Describes
https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.04445 (URL)

Funding

Australian Research Council
CE170100004
Australian Research Council
FL150100148
European Research Council (ERC)
610058
Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO)
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
W. M. Keck Foundation
Swinburne University of Technology

Dates

Created
2018-04-11
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-15
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Astronomy Department , Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)