An image-based search for pulsars among Fermi unassociated LAT sources

Abstract

We describe an image-based method that uses two radio criteria, compactness and spectral index, to identify promising pulsar candidates among Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) unassociated sources. These criteria are applied to those radio sources from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope all-sky survey at 150 MHz (TGSS ADR1) found within the error ellipses of unassociated sources from the 3FGL catalog and a preliminary source list based on 7 years of LAT data. After follow-up interferometric observations to identify extended or variable sources, a list of 16 compact, steep-spectrum candidates is generated. An ongoing search for pulsations in these candidates, in gamma rays and radio, has found six millisecond pulsars and one normal pulsar. A comparison of this method with existing selection criteria based on gamma-ray spectral and variability properties suggests that the pulsar discovery space using Fermi may be larger than previously thought. Radio imaging is a hitherto underutilized source selection method that can be used, as with other multi-wavelength techniques, in the search for Fermi pulsars.

arXiv commentMNRAS, in press (13 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables)

References in corpus (58)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The GMRT 150 MHz All-sky Radio Survey: First Alternative Data Release TGSS ADR1
• The Second Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• The Second Catalog of Active Galactic Nuclei Detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey I: A low-frequency extragalactic catalogue
• The Third Catalog of Active Galactic Nuclei Detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• SUMSS: A Wide-Field Radio Imaging Survey of the Southern Sky. I. Science goals, survey design and instrumentation
• Limits on the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves
• The Australia Telescope Compact Array Broadband Backend (CABB)
• The Very Large Array Low-frequency Sky Survey Redux (VLSSr)
• Compact continuum source-finding for next generation radio surveys
• Pulsar spectra of radio emission
• A state change in the missing link binary pulsar system PSR J1023+0038
• The pulsar spectral index distribution
• The Green Bank Northern Celestial Cap Pulsar Survey - I: Survey Description, Data Analysis, and Initial Results
• A Unified Catalog of Radio Objects Detected by NVSS, FIRST, WENSS, GB6, and SDSS
• The Radio Lifetime of Supernova Remnants and the Distribution of Pulsar Velocities at Birth
• Discovery of PSR J1227-4853: A transition from a low-mass X-ray binary to a redback millisecond pulsar
• HI 21cm absorption beyond the epoch of re-ionization
• PSR J1311-3430: A Heavyweight Neutron Star with a Flyweight Helium Companion
• The Caltech-NRAO Stripe 82 Survey (CNSS) Paper I: The Pilot Radio Transient Survey In 50 deg${}^2$
• Classification and Ranking of Fermi LAT Gamma-ray Sources from the 3FGL Catalog using Machine Learning Techniques
• VLA radio continuum observations of a new sample of high redshift radio galaxies
• The LOFAR Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS) I. Survey description and first results
• PSR J2021+4026 in the Gamma Cygni region: the first variable gamma-ray pulsar seen by the Fermi LAT
• Parkes radio searches of Fermi gamma-ray sources and millisecond pulsar discoveries
• Gamma-ray Pulsar Revolution
• Identification of the High-Energy Gamma-Ray Source 3FGL J1544.6-1125 as a Transitional Millisecond Pulsar Binary in an Accreting State
• The Einstein@Home Gamma-ray Pulsar Survey. I. Search Methods, Sensitivity and Discovery of New Young Gamma-ray Pulsars
• Limits on Fast Radio Bursts and other transient sources at 182 MHz using the Murchison Widefield Array
• GMRT discovery of PSR J1544+4937, an eclipsing black-widow pulsar identified with a Fermi LAT source
• 3FGL Demographics Outside the Galactic Plane using Supervised Machine Learning: Pulsar and Dark Matter Subhalo Interpretations
• Five New Millisecond Pulsars From a Radio Survey of 14 Unidentified Fermi-LAT Gamma-ray Sources
• New Associations of Gamma-Ray Sources from the Fermi Second Source Catalog
• Sensitive Search For Radio Variables And Transients In The Extended Chandra Deep-Field South
• Multiwavelength Observations of the Redback Millisecond Pulsar J1048+2339
• The GMRT High Resolution Southern Sky Survey for pulsars and transients -I. Survey description and initial discoveries
• Hunting for treasures among the Fermi unassociated sources: a multi-wavelength approach
• Radio Detection of the Fermi LAT Blind Search Millisecond Pulsar J1311-3430
• 1FGL J1417.7-4407: A likely gamma-ray bright binary with a massive neutron star and a giant secondary
• Discovery of Gamma-ray Pulsations from the Transitional Redback PSR J1227-4853
• Known Pulsars Identified in the GMRT 150 MHz All-Sky Survey
• On the difference between gamma-ray-detected and non-gamma-ray-detected pulsars
• Six New Millisecond Pulsars from Arecibo Searches of Fermi Gamma-Ray Sources
• Radio-quiet and radio-loud pulsars: similar in Gamma-rays but different in X-rays
• A search for long-timescale, low-frequency radio transients
• Pulsar wind nebulae around the southern pulsars PSR B1643-43 and PSR B1706-44
• PSR J2030+3641: radio discovery and gamma-ray study of a middle-aged pulsar in the now identified Fermi-LAT source 1FGL J2030.0+3641
• Detecting Pulsars with Interstellar Scintillation in Variance Images
• Timing of 29 Pulsars Discovered in the PALFA Survey
• Discovery of an ultracompact gamma-ray millisecond pulsar binary candidate
• Deep wideband single pointings and mosaics in radio interferometry - How accurately do we reconstruct intensities and spectral indices of faint sources?
• Pulsar Candidates Toward Fermi Unassociated Sources
• Searching For Pulsars Associated With the Fermi GeV Excess
• Radio variability in the Phoenix Deep Survey at 1.4GHz
• Searches for millisecond pulsar candidates among the unidentified Fermi objects
• The Feasibility of Using Black Widow Pulsars in Pulsar Timing Arrays for Gravitational Wave Detection

Cited by in corpus (29)

• The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• Optical spectroscopy and demographics of redback millisecond pulsar binaries
• An all-sky survey of circular polarisation at 200 MHz
• Detection and timing of gamma-ray pulsations from the $707$ Hz pulsar J0952$-$0607
• Neutron star mass estimates from gamma-ray eclipses in spider millisecond pulsar binaries
• Measuring the mass of the black widow PSR J1555-2908
• A black widow population dissection through HiPERCAM multi-band light curve modelling
• Multi-wavelength observations of a new redback millisecond pulsar candidate: 3FGL J0954.8-3948
• Searching for pulsars associated with polarised point sources using LOFAR: Initial discoveries from the TULIPP project
• Multiwavelength Spectral Analysis and Neural Network Classification of Counterparts to 4FGL Unassociated Sources
• Discovery of PSR J0523-7125 as a Circularly Polarized Variable Radio Source in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Serendipitous Discovery of PSR J1431-6328 as a Highly-Polarized Point Source with the Australian SKA Pathfinder
• The MAVERIC Survey: New compact binaries revealed by deep radio continuum observations of the Galactic globular cluster Terzan 5
• Radio Counterpart Candidates to 4FGL-DR2 Unassociated Sources
• Discovery, Timing, and Multiwavelength Observations of the Black Widow Millisecond Pulsar PSR J1555-2908
• Classifications of Fermi-LAT unassociated sources in multiple machine learning methods
• A Search for Pulsars in Steep Spectrum Radio Sources
• The MAVERIC survey: A catalogue of radio sources in southern globular clusters from the Australia Telescope Compact Array
• A Combined Radio Multi-Survey Catalog of Fermi Unassociated Sources
• A GMRT 150 MHz Search for Variables and Transients in Stripe 82
• Two Extreme Steep-Spectrum, Polarized Radio Sources Towards the Galactic Bulge
• Is the black-widow pulsar PSR J1555-2908 in a hierarchical triple system?
• Image-based searches for pulsar candidates using MWA VCS data
• GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array survey eXtended (GLEAM-X) III: Galactic Plane
• Radio counterparts of gamma-ray sources in the Cygnus region
• Identifying pulsar candidates in interferometric radio images using scintillation
• Investigating four new candidate redback pulsars discovered in the image plane
• Low radio frequency detections of known pulsars and identification of new candidates with GLEAM-X: GP
• Searching for Gamma-Ray Millisecond Pulsars: Selection of Candidates Revisited