Using the SDSS and Pan-STARRS1 survey data, we found a likely companion of the recently discovered binary γ-ray radio-loud millisecond pulsar J0621+2514. Its visual brightness is about 22 mag. The broad band magnitudes and colours suggest that this is a white dwarf. Comparing the data with various white dwarfs evolutionary tracks, we found that it likely belongs to a class of He-core white dwarfs with a temperature of about 10 000 K and a mass of ≲0.5M⊙. For a thin hydrogen envelope of the white dwarf its cooling age is ≲0.5 Gyr which is smaller than the pulsar characteristic age of 1.8 Gyr. This may indicate that the pulsar age is overestimated. Otherwise, this may be explained by the presence of a thick hydrogen envelope or a low metallicity of the white dwarf progenitor.
@article{arxiv.1805.03918,
title = {Optical identification of the millisecond pulsar J0621+2514},
author = {A. V. Karpova and D. A. Zyuzin and Yu. A. Shibanov and A. Yu. Kirichenko and S. V. Zharikov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.03918},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PASA