Discovery of an unidentified Fermi object as a black widow-like millisecond pulsar

Abstract

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has revolutionized our knowledge of the gamma-ray pulsar population, leading to the discovery of almost 100 gamma-ray pulsars and dozens of gamma-ray millisecond pulsars (MSPs). Although the outer-gap model predicts different sites of emission for the radio and gamma-ray pulsars, until now all of the known gamma-ray MSPs have been visible in the radio. Here we report the discovery of a "radio-quiet" gamma-ray emitting MSP candidate by using Fermi, Chandra, Swift, and optical observations. The X-ray and gamma-ray properties of the source are consistent with known gamma-ray pulsars. We also found a 4.63-hr orbital period in optical and X-ray data. We suggest that the source is a black widow-like MSP with a ~0.1 solar-mass late-type companion star. Based on the profile of the optical and X-ray light-curves, the companion star is believed to be heated by the pulsar while the X-ray emissions originate from pulsar magnetosphere and/or from intra-binary shock. No radio detection of the source has been reported yet and although no gamma-ray/radio pulsation has been found, we estimated that the spin period of the MSP is ~3-5 ms based on the inferred gamma-ray luminosity.

6 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication in ApJL

References in corpus (10)

• A Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Link
• Fermi Large Area Telescope Bright Gamma-ray Source List
• Three Millisecond Pulsars in FERMI LAT Unassociated Bright Sources
• Modeling interaction of relativistic and nonrelativistic winds in binary system PSR 1259-63/SS2883. I.Hydrodynamical limit
• Discovery of Nine Gamma-Ray Pulsars in Fermi-LAT Data Using a New Blind Search Method
• X-ray Variability and Evidence for Pulsations from the Unique Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Transition Object FIRST J102347.6+003841
• The Orbit and Companion of Probable gamma-ray Pulsar J2339-0533
• Evidence for gamma-ray emission from the low-mass X-ray binary system FIRST J102347.6+003841
• The High Time Resolution Universe Pulsar Survey IV: Discovery and polarimetry of millisecond pulsars
• X-ray and Gamma-ray Emissions from Different Evolutionary Stage of Rotation Powered Millisecond Pulsars

Cited by in corpus (42)

• The Second Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• Surrounded by Spiders! New Black Widows and Redbacks in the Galactic Field
• Classification and Ranking of Fermi LAT Gamma-ray Sources from the 3FGL Catalog using Machine Learning Techniques
• Optical spectroscopy and demographics of redback millisecond pulsar binaries
• X-ray follow-ups of XSSJ12270-4859: a low-mass X-ray binary with gamma ray FERMI-LAT association
• X-ray states of redback millisecond pulsars
• 2FGL J1311.7-3429 Joins the Black Widow Club
• Binary Pulsar Distances and Velocities from Gaia Data Release 2
• Gamma-ray Timing of Redback PSR J2339-0533: Hints for Gravitational Quadrupole Moment Changes
• Unveiling the redback nature of the low-mass X-ray binary XSSJ1227.0-4859 through optical observations
• Radio Detection of the Fermi LAT Blind Search Millisecond Pulsar J1311-3430
• Optical Counterparts of Two Fermi Millisecond Pulsars: PSR J1301+0833 and PSR J1628-3205
• Cosmic-ray positrons from millisecond pulsars
• 1FGL J0523.5-2529: A New Probable Gamma-ray Pulsar Binary
• 2FGL J1653.6-0159: A New Low in Evaporating Pulsar Binary Periods
• Variable Heating and Flaring of Three Redback Millisecond Pulsar Companions
• Multiband Diagnostics of Unidentified 1FGL Sources with Suzaku and Swift X-ray Observations
• Orbital Phase Dependent Gamma-ray emissions from the Black Widow Pulsar
• A non-thermal pulsed X-ray emission of AR~Scorpii
• Discovery of a Redback Millisecond Pulsar Candidate: 3FGL J0212.1+5320
• A Likely Redback Millisecond Pulsar Counterpart of 3FGL J0838.8-2829
• A Model for AR~Scorpii: Emission from Relativistic Electrons Trapped by Closed Magnetic Field Lines of Magnetic White Dwarfs
• A multi-wavelength investigation of candidate milli-second pulsars in unassociated $\gamma$-ray sources
• Toward Identifying the Unassociated Gamma-ray Source 1FGL J1311.7-3429 with X-ray and Optical Observations
• A millisecond pulsar candidate in a 21-hr orbit: 3FGL J0212.1+5320
• Exploring the intrabinary shock from the redback millisecond pulsar PSR J2129-0429
• Multi-wavelength observations of a new redback millisecond pulsar candidate: 3FGL J0954.8-3948
• Discovery of an ultracompact gamma-ray millisecond pulsar binary candidate
• Heated Poles on the Companion of Redback PSR J2339$-$0533
• Simplified Picture of Low Mass X-ray Binaries based on Data from Aql X-1 and 4U1608-52
• Searches for millisecond pulsar candidates among the unidentified Fermi objects
• The Emission Physics of Millisecond Pulsars
• Orbital Modulation of Gamma Rays from PSR~J2339$-$0533
• A NuSTAR Observation of the Gamma-ray Emitting Millisecond Pulsar PSR J1723-2837
• The 26.3-hr orbit and multi-wavelength properties of the "redback" millisecond pulsar PSR J1306-40
• Multi-wavelength observations of the black widow pulsar 2FGL J2339.6-0532 with OISTER and Suzaku
• Optical emission of the black hole X-ray transient MAXI J1659-152 during quiescence
• Searches for Pulsar-like Candidates from Unidentified Objects in the Third Catalog of Hard Fermi-LAT (3FHL) sources with Machine Learning Techniques
• On the vanishing orbital X-ray variability of the eclipsing binary millisecond pulsar 47 Tuc W
• Radio counterparts of gamma-ray pulsars
• Evidence for optical pulsations from a redback millisecond pulsar