Discovery of a Redback Millisecond Pulsar Candidate: 3FGL J0212.1+5320

Abstract

We present a multi-wavelength study of the unidentified Fermi object, 3FGL J0212.1+5320. Within the 95% error ellipse, Chandra detects a bright X-ray source (i.e., F(0.5-7keV) = 1.4e-12 erg/cm^2/s), which has a low-mass optical counterpart (M < 0.4 Msun and T ~ 6000 K). A clear ellipsoidal modulation is shown in optical/infrared at 20.87 hours. The gamma-ray properties of 3FGL J0212.1+5320 are all consistent with that of a millisecond pulsar, suggesting that it is a gamma-ray redback millisecond pulsar binary with a low-mass companion filling > 64% of the Roche-lobe. If confirmed, it will be a redback binary with one of the longest orbital periods known. Spectroscopic data taken in 2015 from the Lijiang observatory show no evidence of strong emission lines, revealing that the accretion is currently inactive (the rotation-powered pulsar state). This is consistent with the low X-ray luminosities (Lx ~ 10^32 erg/s) and the possible X-ray modulation seen by Chandra and Swift. Considering that the X-ray luminosity and the high X-ray-to-gamma-ray flux ratio (8%) are both comparable to that of the two known gamma-ray transitional millisecond pulsars, we suspect that 3FGL J0212.1+5320 could be a potential target to search for future transition to the accretion active state.

7 pages, including 3 figures and 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (12)

• A Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Link
• Three Millisecond Pulsars in FERMI LAT Unassociated Bright Sources
• Discovery of PSR J1227-4853: A transition from a low-mass X-ray binary to a redback millisecond pulsar
• Binary Millisecond Pulsar Discovery via Gamma-Ray Pulsations
• X-ray states of redback millisecond pulsars
• NuSTAR Observations of the State Transition of Millisecond Pulsar Binary PSR J1023+0038
• Gamma-ray Timing of Redback PSR J2339-0533: Hints for Gravitational Quadrupole Moment Changes
• Evidence for gamma-ray emission from the low-mass X-ray binary system FIRST J102347.6+003841
• 1FGL J1417.7-4407: A likely gamma-ray bright binary with a massive neutron star and a giant secondary
• NuSTAR observations and broadband spectral energy distribution modeling of the millisecond pulsar binary PSR J1023+0038
• Discovery of an ultracompact gamma-ray millisecond pulsar binary candidate
• Exploring the intrabinary shock from the redback millisecond pulsar PSR J2129-0429

Cited by in corpus (21)

• Incremental Fermi Large Area Telescope Fourth Source Catalog
• The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• Optical spectroscopy and demographics of redback millisecond pulsar binaries
• A New Flaring Black Widow Candidate and Demographics of Black Widow Millisecond Pulsars in the Galactic Field
• Neutron star mass estimates from gamma-ray eclipses in spider millisecond pulsar binaries
• A Likely Redback Millisecond Pulsar Counterpart of 3FGL J0838.8-2829
• Properties of the redback millisecond pulsar binary 3FGL J0212.1+5320
• Classification of New X-ray Counterparts for Fermi Unassociated Gamma Ray Sources Using the Swift X-Ray Telescope
• Orbital Dynamics of Candidate Transitional Millisecond Pulsar 3FGL J1544.6-1125: An unusually face-on system
• A New Candidate Transitional Millisecond Pulsar in the Sub-luminous Disk State: 4FGL J0407.7--5702
• Multiwavelength Spectral Analysis and Neural Network Classification of Counterparts to 4FGL Unassociated Sources
• 2FGL J0846.0+2820: A new neutron star binary with a giant secondary and variable $\gamma$-ray emission
• Discovery of a New Redback Millisecond Pulsar Candidate: 4FGL J0940.3-7610
• Multi-Wavelength Observations Of A New Redback Millisecond Pulsar 4FGL J1910.7-5320
• The 26.3-hr orbit and multi-wavelength properties of the "redback" millisecond pulsar PSR J1306-40
• Revealing a New Black Widow Binary 4FGL J0336.0+7502
• Green Bank Telescope Discovery of the Redback Binary Millisecond Pulsar PSR J0212+5321
• Periodicity search for Pulsar Binaries with TESS
• Multiwavelength Evidence for Two New Candidate Transitional Millisecond Pulsars in the Sub-luminous Disk State: 4FGL J0639.1--8009 and 4FGL J1824.2+1231
• X-ray and Radio Studies of the candidate Millisecond Pulsar Binary 4FGL J0935.3+0901
• XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of the candidate Fermi-LAT pulsar 4FGL J1015.5-6030