Discovery of a Young Radio Pulsar in a Relativistic Binary Orbit
Abstract
We report on the discovery of PSR J1141-6545, a radio pulsar in an eccentric, relativistic 5-hr binary orbit. The pulsar shows no evidence for being recycled, having pulse period P = 394 ms, characteristic age tau_c = 1.4 x 10^6 yr, and inferred surface magnetic dipole field strength B = 1.3 x 10^12 G. From the mass function and measured rate of periastron advance, we determine the total mass in the system to be (2.300 +/- 0.012) solar masses, assuming that the periastron advance is purely relativistic. Under the same assumption, we constrain the pulsar's mass to be M_p < 1.348 solar masses and the companion's mass to be M_c > 0.968 solar masses (both 99% confidence). Given the total system mass and the distribution of measured neutron star masses, the companion is probably a massive white dwarf which formed prior to the birth of the pulsar. Optical observations can test this hypothesis.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0005214,
title = {Discovery of a Young Radio Pulsar in a Relativistic Binary Orbit},
author = {V. M. Kaspi and A. G. Lyne and R. N. Manchester and F. Crawford and F. Camilo and J. F. Bell and N. D'Amico and I. H. Stairs and N. P. F. McKay and D. J. Morris and A. Possenti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0005214},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
18 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for Publication in ApJ