THE WHITE DWARF COMPANION OF A 2 M{sub sun} NEUTRON STAR

Journal Article · Wed Aug 10 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/737/1/L1· OSTI ID:21562495

Bhalerao, Varun B; Kulkarni, S R ^[1]

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1. Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)

We report the optical discovery of the companion to the 2 M{sub sun} millisecond pulsar PSR J1614-2230. The optical colors show that the 0.5 M{sub sun} companion is a 2.2 Gyr old He-CO white dwarf. We infer that M-dot during the accretion phase is <10{sup -2} M-dot{sub edd}. We show that the pulsar was born with a spin close to its current value, well below the rebirth line. The spin-down parameters, the mass of the pulsar, and the age of the system challenge the simple recycling model for the formation of millisecond pulsars.

• OSTI ID: 21562495
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 737, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/737/1/L1; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
NEUTRON STARS
PULSARS
WHITE DWARF STARS
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
DWARF STARS
STARS