Discovery of new gamma-ray pulsars with AGILE

Abstract

Using gamma-ray data collected by the Astrorivelatore Gamma ad Immagini LEggero (AGILE) satellite over a period of almost one year (from 2007 July to 2008 June), we searched for pulsed signals from 35 potentially interesting radio pulsars, ordered according to $F_{\gamma }\propto \sqrt{\dot{E}}{d}^{-2}$ and for which contemporary or recent radio data were available. AGILE detected three new top-ranking nearby and Vela-like pulsars with good confidence both through timing and spatial analysis. Among the newcomers we find pulsars with very high rotational energy losses, such as the remarkable PSR B1509-58 with a magnetic field in excess of 10^13 Gauss, and PSR J2229+6114 providing a reliable identification for the previously unidentified EGRET source 3EG 2227+6122. Moreover, the powerful millisecond pulsar B1821-24, in the globular cluster M28, is detected during a fraction of the observations. Four other promising gamma-ray pulsar candidates, among which is the notable J2043+2740 with an age in excess of 1 million years, show a possible detection in the timing analysis only and deserve confirmation.

Minor changes to match the final ApJ version. 5 pages in emulate-apj style, 1 table, 3 figures

References in corpus (5)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• TEMPO2, a new pulsar timing package. I: Overview
• Tempo2, a new pulsar timing package. II: The timing model and precision estimates
• Discovery of High-Energy Gamma-Ray Pulsations from PSR J2021+3651 with AGILE
• Population statistics study of radio and gamma-ray pulsars in the Galactic plane

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Fermi LAT Observations of the Vela Pulsar
• The soft gamma-ray pulsar population: an high-energy overview
• Six millisecond pulsars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope and the radio/gamma-ray connection of millisecond pulsars
• The annular gap model for gamma-ray emission from young and millisecond pulsars
• The Second AGILE Catalog of Gamma-Ray Sources
• The peculiar isolated neutron star in the Carina Nebula - Deep XMM-Newton and ESO-VLT observations of 2XMM J104608.7-594306
• A 350-MHz Green Bank Telescope Survey of Unassociated Fermi LAT Sources: Discovery and Timing of Ten Millisecond Pulsars
• Fermi pulsar revolution
• Detections of millisecond pulsars with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Large Binocular Telescope observations of PSR J2043+2740
• Pulsar Observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• A Model of High Energy Activity of Millisecond Pulsars in Globular Clusters