Optical identification of the millisecond pulsar J0621+2514

Abstract

Using the SDSS and Pan-STARRS1 survey data, we found a likely companion of the recently discovered binary $\gamma$-ray radio-loud millisecond pulsar J0621+2514. Its visual brightness is about 22 mag. The broad band magnitudes and colours suggest that this is a white dwarf. Comparing the data with various white dwarfs evolutionary tracks, we found that it likely belongs to a class of He-core white dwarfs with a temperature of about 10 000 K and a mass of $\lesssim 0.5$M${}_{\odot }$. For a thin hydrogen envelope of the white dwarf its cooling age is $\lesssim 0.5$ Gyr which is smaller than the pulsar characteristic age of 1.8 Gyr. This may indicate that the pulsar age is overestimated. Otherwise, this may be explained by the presence of a thick hydrogen envelope or a low metallicity of the white dwarf progenitor.

5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PASA

References in corpus (5)

• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• A Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Link
• Found: The missing blue opacity in atmosphere models of cool hydrogen white dwarfs
• Discovery of PSR J1227-4853: A transition from a low-mass X-ray binary to a redback millisecond pulsar
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Cited by in corpus (4)

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• On the effect of pulsar evaporation on the cooling of white dwarfs
• Optical spectral observations of three binary millisecond pulsars
• Detection of the PSR J1741+1351 white dwarf companion with the Gran Telescopio Canarias