DISCOVERY OF TWO MILLISECOND PULSARS IN FERMI SOURCES WITH THE NANCAY RADIO TELESCOPE
- Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace LPC2E CNRS-Universite d'Orleans, F-45071 Orleans Cedex 02, and Station de radioastronomie de Nancay, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS/INSU, F-18330 Nancy (France)
- Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, Auf dem Huegel 69, 53121 Bonn (Germany)
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Universite Bordeaux 1, CNRS/IN2p3, Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires de Bordeaux Gradignan, 33175 Gradignan (France)
- North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, Potchefstroom 2520 (South Africa)
- Space Science Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 (United States)
- National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC 20001 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (United States)
- Laboratoire AIM, CEA-IRFU/CNRS/Universite Paris Diderot, Service d'Astrophysique, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif sur Yvette (France)
- Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411 (United States)
- Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO, Epping, NSW 1710 (Australia)
We report the discovery of two millisecond pulsars in a search for radio pulsations at the positions of Fermi-Large Area Telescope sources with no previously known counterparts, using the Nancay Radio Telescope. The two millisecond pulsars, PSRs J2017+0603 and J2302+4442, have rotational periods of 2.896 and 5.192 ms and are both in binary systems with low-eccentricity orbits and orbital periods of 2.2 and 125.9 days, respectively, suggesting long recycling processes. Gamma-ray pulsations were subsequently detected for both objects, indicating that they power the associated Fermi sources in which they were found. The gamma-ray light curves and spectral properties are similar to those of previously detected gamma-ray millisecond pulsars. Detailed modeling of the observed radio and gamma-ray light curves shows that the gamma-ray emission seems to originate at high altitudes in their magnetospheres. Additionally, X-ray observations revealed the presence of an X-ray source at the position of PSR J2302+4442, consistent with thermal emission from a neutron star. These discoveries along with the numerous detections of radio-loud millisecond pulsars in gamma rays suggest that many Fermi sources with no known counterpart could be unknown millisecond pulsars.
- OSTI ID:
- 21574621
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 732, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/732/1/47; ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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