FAST discovery of an extremely radio-faint millisecond pulsar from the Fermi-LAT unassociated source 3FGL J0318.1+0252
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China); University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China)
- Univ. of Manchester (United Kingdom); Univ. of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban (South Africa)
- Univ. of Hong Kong, (China); Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Kumming (China)
- Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang (China)
- Univ. of Hong Kong (Hong Kong); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
- US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington (United States)
- University of Bordeaux, Gradignan (France)
- Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai (China)
- Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Urumqi (China)
High sensitivity radio searches of unassociated γ-ray sources have proven to be an effective way of finding new pulsars. Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) during its commissioning phase, we have carried out a number of targeted deep searches of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) γ-ray sources. On February 27, 2018 we discovered an isolated millisecond pulsar (MSP), PSR J0318+0253, coincident with the unassociated γ-ray source 3FGL J0318.1+0252. PSR J0318+0253 has a spin period of 5.19 ms, a dispersion measure (DM) of 26 pc cm–3 corresponding to a DM distance of about 1.3 kpc, and a period-averaged flux density of (~11±2) µJy at L-band (1.05–1.45 GHz). Among all high energy MSPs, PSR J0318+0253 is the faintest ever detected in radio bands, by a factor of at least ~4 in terms of L-band fluxes. With the aid of the radio ephemeris, an analysis of 9.6 years of Fermi-LAT data revealed that PSR J0318+0253 also displays strong γ-ray pulsations. Follow-up observations carried out by both Arecibo and FAST suggest a likely spectral turn-over around 350 MHz. This is the first result from the collaboration between FAST and the Fermi-LAT teams as well as the first confirmed new MSP discovery by FAST, raising hopes for the detection of many more MSPs. Finally, such discoveries will make a significant contribution to our understanding of the neutron star zoo while potentially contributing to the future detection of gravitational waves, via pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments.
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- Contributing Organization:
- FAST and Fermi-LAT Collaboration
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515; 80NSSC18K1731
- OSTI ID:
- 1872422
- Journal Information:
- Science China. Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, Vol. 64, Issue 12; ISSN 1674-7348
- Publisher:
- Science China Press and SpringerCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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