Arecibo PALFA Survey and Einstein@Home: Binary Pulsar Discovery by Volunteer Computing
Abstract
We report the discovery of the 20.7 ms binary pulsar J1952+2630, made using the distributed computing project Einstein@Home in Pulsar ALFA survey observations with the Arecibo telescope. Follow-up observations with the Arecibo telescope confirm the binary nature of the system. We obtain a circular orbital solution with an orbital period of 9.4 hr, a projected orbital radius of 2.8 lt-s, and a mass function of f = 0.15 solar masses by analysis of spin period measurements. No evidence of orbital eccentricity is apparent; we set a 2-sigma upper limit e < 1.7e-3. The orbital parameters suggest a massive white dwarf companion with a minimum mass of 0.95 solar masses, assuming a pulsar mass of 1.4 solar masses. Most likely, this pulsar belongs to the rare class of intermediate mass binary pulsars. Future timing observations will aim to determine the parameters of this system further, measure relativistic effects, and elucidate the nature of the companion star.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1102.5340,
title = {Arecibo PALFA Survey and Einstein@Home: Binary Pulsar Discovery by Volunteer Computing},
author = {B. Knispel and P. Lazarus and B. Allen and D. Anderson and C. Aulbert and N. D. R. Bhat and O. Bock and S. Bogdanov and A. Brazier and F. Camilo and S. Chatterjee and J. M. Cordes and F. Crawford and J. S. Deneva and G. Desvignes and H. Fehrmann and P. C. C. Freire and D. Hammer and J. W. T. Hessels and F. A. Jenet and V. M. Kaspi and M. Kramer and J. van Leeuwen and D. R. Lorimer and A. G. Lyne and B. Machenschalk and M. A. McLaughlin and C. Messenger and D. J. Nice and M. A. Papa and H. J. Pletsch and R. Prix and S. M. Ransom and X. Siemens and I. H. Stairs and B. W. Stappers and K. Stovall and A. Venkataraman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1102.5340},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; updated to published version