English

Limits on the Mass, Velocity and Orbit of PSR J1933$-$6211

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2017-09-06 v1

Abstract

We present a high-precision timing analysis of PSR J1933-6211, a millisecond pulsar (MSP) with a 3.5-ms spin period and a white dwarf (WD) companion, using data from the Parkes radio telescope. Since we have accurately measured the polarization properties of this pulsar we have applied the matrix template matching approach in which the times of arrival are measured using full polarimetric information. We achieved a weighted root-mean-square timing residuals (rms) of the timing residuals of 1.23 μs\rm \mu s, 15.5%\% improvement compared to the total intensity timing analysis. After studying the scintillation properties of this pulsar we put constraints on the inclination angle of the system. Based on these measurements and on χ2\chi^2 mapping we put a 2-σ\sigma upper limit on the companion mass (0.44 M_\odot). Since this mass limit cannot reveal the nature of the companion we further investigate the possibility of the companion to be a He WD. Applying the orbital period-mass relation for such WDs, we conclude that the mass of a He WD companion would be about 0.26±\pm0.01 M_\odot which, combined with the measured mass function and orbital inclination limits, would lead to a light pulsar mass \leqslant 1.0 M_\odot. This result seems unlikely based on current neutron star formation models and we therefore conclude that PSR J1933-6211 most likely has a CO WD companion, which allows for a solution with a more massive pulsar.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.01819,
  title  = {Limits on the Mass, Velocity and Orbit of PSR J1933$-$6211},
  author = {E. Graikou and J. P. W. Verbiest and S. Oslowski and D. J. Champion and T. M. Tauris and F. Jankowski and M. Kramer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.01819},
  year   = {2017}
}