The TRAPUM L-band survey for pulsars in Fermi-LAT gamma-ray sources

authored by

C J Clark, R P Breton, E D Barr, M Burgay, T Thongmeearkom, L Nieder, S Buchner, B Stappers, M Kramer, W Becker, M Mayer, A Phosrisom, A Ashok, M C Bezuidenhout, F Calore, I Cognard, P C C Freire, M Geyer, J-m Grießmeier, R Karuppusamy, L Levin, P V Padmanabh, A Possenti, S Ransom, M Serylak, V Venkatraman Krishnan, L Vleeschower, J Behrend, D J Champion, W Chen, D Horn, E F Keane, L Künkel, Y Men, A Ridolfi, V S Dhillon, T R Marsh, M A Papa

Abstract

More than 100 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) have been discovered in radio observations of gamma-ray sources detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), but hundreds of pulsar-like sources remain unidentified. Here, we present the first results from the targeted survey of Fermi-LAT sources being performed by the Transients and Pulsars with MeerKAT (TRAPUM) Large Survey Project. We observed 79 sources identified as possible gamma-ray pulsar candidates by a Random Forest classification of unassociated sources from the 4FGL catalogue. Each source was observed for 10 min on two separate epochs using MeerKAT's L-band receiver (856-1712 MHz), with typical pulsed flux density sensitivities of ∼ 100 μJy. Nine new MSPs were discovered, eight of which are in binary systems, including two eclipsing redbacks and one system, PSR J1526-2744, that appears to have a white dwarf companion in an unusually compact 5 h orbit. We obtained phase-connected timing solutions for two of these MSPs, enabling the detection of gamma-ray pulsations in the Fermi-LAT data. A follow-up search for continuous gravitational waves from PSR J1526-2744 in Advanced LIGO data using the resulting Fermi-LAT timing ephemeris yielded no detection, but sets an upper limit on the neutron star ellipticity of 2.45 × 10-8. We also detected X-ray emission from the redback PSR J1803-6707 in data from the first eROSITA all-sky survey, likely due to emission from an intrabinary shock.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Gravitation Physics

External Organisation(s)

Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
University of Manchester
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy
Cagliari Observatory
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
University of Mannheim
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE)
Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of the Environment and Space (LPC2E)
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Socorro
University of the Western Cape
South African Astronomical Observatory
Trinity College Dublin
Bielefeld University
The University of Sheffield
University of Warwick

Type

Article

Journal

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Volume

519

Pages

5590-5606

No. of pages

17

ISSN

0035-8711

Publication date

03.2023

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Science

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2212.08528 (Access: Open)
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3742 (Access: Closed)