We report the discovery of a radio pulsar with a characteristic age of 7300 years, making it one of the 10 apparently youngest Galactic pulsars known. PSR J1357-6429, with a spin period of P = 166 ms and spin-down luminosity of 3.1e36 ergs/s, was detected during the Parkes multibeam survey of the Galactic plane. We have measured a large rotational glitch in this pulsar, with Delta P/P = -2.4e-6, similar in magnitude to those experienced occasionally by the Vela pulsar. At a nominal distance of only ~ 2.5 kpc, based on the measured free electron column density of 127 pc/cc and the electron distribution model of Cordes & Lazio, this may be, after the Crab, the nearest very young pulsar known. The pulsar is located near the radio supernova remnant candidate G309.8-2.6.
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0406528,
title = {The Very Young Radio Pulsar J1357-6429},
author = {F. Camilo and R. N. Manchester and A. G. Lyne and B. M. Gaensler and A. Possenti and N. D'Amico and I. H. Stairs and A. J. Faulkner and M. Kramer and D. R. Lorimer and M. A. McLaughlin and G. Hobbs},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0406528},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters; 6 pages, 2 included EPS figures