Fermi LAT pulsed detection of PSR J0737-3039A in the double pulsar system

Abstract

We report the Fermi Large Area Telescope discovery of gamma-ray pulsations from the 22.7 ms pulsar A in the double pulsar system J0737-3039A/B. This is the first mildly recycled millisecond pulsar (MSP) detected in the GeV domain. The 2.7 s companion object PSR J0737-3039B is not detected in gamma rays. PSR J0737-3039A is a faint gamma-ray emitter, so that its spectral properties are only weakly constrained; however, its measured efficiency is typical of other MSPs. The two peaks of the gamma-ray light curve are separated by roughly half a rotation and are well offset from the radio and X-ray emission, suggesting that the GeV radiation originates in a distinct part of the magnetosphere from the other types of emission. From the modeling of the radio and the gamma-ray emission profiles and the analysis of radio polarization data, we constrain the magnetic inclination $\alpha$ and the viewing angle $\zeta$ to be close to 90${}^{\circ }$, which is consistent with independent studies of the radio emission from PSR J0737-3039A. A small misalignment angle between the pulsar's spin axis and the system's orbital axis is therefore favored, supporting the hypothesis that pulsar B was formed in a nearly symmetric supernova explosion as has been discussed in the literature already.

Published in the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ 768, 169, 2013). Updated to reflect changes made at the proof stage

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• The Evolution of Compact Binary Star Systems
• The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• The Relativistic Binary Programme on MeerKAT: Science objectives and first results
• Bayesian Model Comparison and Analysis of the Galactic Disk Population of Gamma-Ray Millisecond Pulsars
• The TRAPUM L-band survey for pulsars in Fermi-LAT gamma-ray sources
• The Einstein@Home Gamma-Ray Pulsar Survey II. Source Selection, Spectral Analysis and Multi-wavelength Follow-up
• On the non-detection of gamma-rays from energetic millisecond pulsars -- dependence on viewing geometry
• Exact expressions for the pericenter precession caused by some Dark Matter distributions and constraints on them from orbital motions in the Solar System, in the double pulsar and in the Galactic center
• Gravitational signal propagation in the Double Pulsar studied with the MeerKAT telescope
• Realistic Modeling of the Pulse Profile of PSR J0737-3039A
• Highly polarized components of integrated pulse profiles
• Effect of geodetic precession on the evolution of pulsar high-energy pulse profiles as derived with the striped-wind model
• General solution for the vacuum electromagnetic field in the surroundings of a rotating star
• Hubble Space Telescope detection of the double pulsar system J0737-3039 in the far-ultraviolet
• Long Term Study of the Double Pulsar J0737-3039 with XMM-Newton: pulsar timing