A Search for Very High-Energy Gamma Rays from the Missing Link Binary Pulsar J1023+0038 with VERITAS

Abstract

The binary millisecond radio pulsar PSR J1023+0038 exhibits many characteristics similar to the gamma-ray binary system PSR B1259--63/LS 2883, making it an ideal candidate for the study of high-energy non-thermal emission. It has been the subject of multi-wavelength campaigns following the disappearance of the pulsed radio emission in 2013 June, which revealed the appearance of an accretion disk around the neutron star. We present the results of very high-energy gamma-ray observations carried out by VERITAS before and after this change of state. Searches for steady and pulsed emission of both data sets yield no significant gamma-ray signal above 100 GeV, and upper limits are given for both a steady and pulsed gamma-ray flux. These upper limits are used to constrain the magnetic field strength in the shock region of the PSR J1023+0038 system. Assuming that very high-energy gamma rays are produced via an inverse-Compton mechanism in the shock region, we constrain the shock magnetic field to be greater than $\sim$2 G before the disappearance of the radio pulsar and greater than $\sim$10 G afterwards.

7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (15)

• TEMPO2, a new pulsar timing package. I: Overview
• A Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Link
• The First VERITAS Telescope
• Observation of Pulsed Gamma-rays Above 25 GeV from the Crab Pulsar with MAGIC
• Discovery of PSR J1227-4853: A transition from a low-mass X-ray binary to a redback millisecond pulsar
• VERITAS Observations of the gamma-Ray Binary LS I +61 303
• X-ray Variability and Evidence for Pulsations from the Unique Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Transition Object FIRST J102347.6+003841
• Radio Searches of Fermi LAT Sources and Blind Search Pulsars: The Fermi Pulsar Search Consortium
• Gamma-Hadron Separation Methods for the VERITAS Array of Four Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes
• NuSTAR Observations of the State Transition of Millisecond Pulsar Binary PSR J1023+0038
• Six millisecond pulsars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope and the radio/gamma-ray connection of millisecond pulsars
• Evidence for gamma-ray emission from the low-mass X-ray binary system FIRST J102347.6+003841
• NuSTAR observations and broadband spectral energy distribution modeling of the millisecond pulsar binary PSR J1023+0038
• Accretion-powered pulsations in an apparently quiescent neutron star binary
• X-Ray Studies of Redbacks

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Precise optical timing of PSR J1023+0038, the first millisecond pulsar detected with Aqueye+ in Asiago