Using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), we have discovered PSR J0514-4002A, a binary millisecond pulsar in the globular cluster NGC 1851. This pulsar has a rotational period of 4.99 ms and the most eccentric pulsar orbit yet found: e = 0.89. The orbital period is 18.8 days, and companion has a minimum mass of 0.9 M_sun; its nature is presently unclear. After accreting matter from a low-mass stellar companion, this pulsar exchanged it for its more massive present companion. This system presents the strongest evidence to date of such a process.
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0404104,
title = {The PSR J0514-4002A binary system in NGC 1851},
author = {P. C. C. Freire and Y. Gupta and S. M. Ransom and C. H. Ishwara-Chandra},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0404104},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
6 pages, 3 figures, to be published in the proceedings of the "Binary Pulsars" Conference, Aspen, January 2004