Study sheds more light on the nature of pulsar PSR J1227−6208

Astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfRA) in Bonn, Germany and elsewhere have inspected a recycled pulsar referred to as PSR J1227−6208. The brand new examine, published July 18 on the preprint server arXiv, offers necessary insights into the character of this pulsar.

Pulsars are extremely magnetized, rotating neutron stars emitting a beam of electromagnetic radiation. They’re often detected within the type of quick bursts of radio emission; nevertheless, a few of them are additionally noticed by way of optical, X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes.

The so-called recycled pulsars are outdated pulsars which have been spun up or “recycled” by accretion of matter from a companion star in an in depth binary system. The extra huge and developed the companion star is on the onset of the mass switch, the slower is the ultimate spin charge of the recycled pulsar. Subsequently, recycled pulsars with huge companions, comparable to carbon monoxide (CO) or oxygen/neon/magnesium composition (ONeMg) white dwarfs (WD) or neutron stars, are a lot slower rotators, normally, when in comparison with millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with helium (He) WD companions.

PSR J1227−6208 is a mildly recycled pulsar with a spin interval of roughly 34.5 milliseconds. It has an enormous companion, with a minimal mass of about 1.27 solar plenty (assuming a pulsar mass of 1.35 solar plenty). The orbital interval of the system is 6.72 days.

A crew of astronomers led by MPIfRA’s Miquel Colom i Bernadich has taken a more in-depth take a look at PSR J1227−6208. They employed Parkes and MeerKAT radio telescopes to conduct emission and timing evaluation of this pulsar, discovering that it belongs to the rising class of huge recycled pulsar−ONeMg WD programs.

Primarily based on the collected knowledge, the researchers calculated that the mass of the pulsar is between 1.16 and 1.69 solar plenty, whereas the mass of the companion star is estimated to be throughout the vary of 1.21-1.47 solar plenty. The system has a really small orbital eccentricity—at a stage of 0.00115.

In keeping with authors of the examine, the estimated plenty and orbital eccentricity nearly exclude the likelihood that the companion could also be a neutron star, favoring the white dwarf state of affairs. They assume that this object is an enormous ONeMg white dwarf near the Chandrasekhar restrict (the utmost mass of a steady white dwarf, about 1.4 solar plenty).

The astronomers famous that taking into consideration the comparatively giant spin interval of PSR J1227−6208, the pulsar has possible accreted not more than 0.0045 solar plenty in the course of the recycling course of. Nonetheless, they added that if the accretion occurred in a time interval considerably shorter than 100,000 years, this may level to both a super-Eddington accretion charge or a big spin-up effectivity.

The examine discovered that the heartbeat profile of PSR J1227−6208 has a steep flux density spectral index and a flat scattering index. It was additionally discovered that round 15% of the pulsar’s emission is linearly polarized.

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