Face changing companion of the redback millisecond pulsar PSR J1048+2339

Abstract

We present optical observations of the redback millisecond pulsar PSR J1048+2339, which is a 4.66 ms radio pulsar in a compact binary with an orbital period of six hours. We obtained high-quality light curves of PSR J1048+2339 with the Lulin 1 m Telescope. The system shows two distinct six-hour orbital modulations, in which an ellipsoidal modulation changes into a sinusoidal-like profile in less than 14 days. In addition to the change, the brightness of the companion increased by one magnitude, suggesting that the latter type of modulation is caused by the pulsar wind heating of the companion and that the heating became dominant in the system. While the changes are not unexpected, such a timescale is the shortest among similar systems. We performed modeling analysis to extract the properties of the system. We obtained a derived pulsar mass of 2.1 M${}_{\odot }$ and a companion star mass of 0.4 M${}_{\odot }$ for the system. The irradiation power increased by a factor of 6 during which the pulsar wind heating dominates. We also report on the two archival Chandra X-ray observations and discuss several possibilities that might cause the varying heating on the companion.

arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (18)

• The Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) Survey of Galactic HI: Final data release of the combined LDS and IAR surveys with improved stray-radiation corrections
• Estimating distances from parallaxes IV: Distances to 1.33 billion stars in Gaia Data Release 2
• A Chandra X-ray Observation of the Binary Millisecond Pulsar PSR J1023+0038
• Intra-Binary Shock Heating of Black Widow Companions
• Multi-wavelength emissions from the millisecond pulsar binary PSR J1023+0038 during an accretion active state
• Constraining Relativistic Bow Shock Properties in Rotation-Powered Millisecond Pulsar Binaries
• X-ray studies of the Black Widow Pulsar PSR B1957+20
• Properties and Evolution of the Redback Millisecond Pulsar Binary PSR J2129-0429
• Multiwavelength Observations of the Redback Millisecond Pulsar J1048+2339
• B-ducted Heating of Black Widow Companions
• X-ray Census of Millisecond Pulsars in the Galactic field
• NuSTAR observations and broadband spectral energy distribution modeling of the millisecond pulsar binary PSR J1023+0038
• X-ray and Gamma-ray Emissions from Different Evolutionary Stage of Rotation Powered Millisecond Pulsars
• Six New Millisecond Pulsars from Arecibo Searches of Fermi Gamma-Ray Sources
• Variable Heating and Flaring of Three Redback Millisecond Pulsar Companions
• Mode change of a gamma-ray pulsar, PSR J2021+4026
• Exploring the intrabinary shock from the redback millisecond pulsar PSR J2129-0429
• Broadband High-Energy Emissions of the Redback Millisecond Pulsar PSR J2129-0429

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Long Term Variability of a Black Widow's Eclipses -- A Decade of PSR J2051$-$0827
• Neutron star mass estimates from gamma-ray eclipses in spider millisecond pulsar binaries
• A Deep Chandra X-ray Observatory Study of the Millisecond Pulsar Population in the Globular Cluster Terzan 5
• The Flare-Dominated Accretion Mode of a Radio-Bright Candidate Transitional Millisecond Pulsar
• Gamma-ray Eclipses and Orbital Modulation Transitions in the Candidate Redback 4FGL J1702.7-5655
• Multi-Wavelength Observations Of A New Redback Millisecond Pulsar 4FGL J1910.7-5320
• Identifying the formation mechanism of redback pulsars
• A strange star scenario for the formation of isolated millisecond pulsars
• A Compact X-Ray Emitting Binary in Likely Association with 4FGL J0935.3+0901
• Revealing a New Black Widow Binary 4FGL J0336.0+7502
• 4FGL J1120.0-2204: A Unique Gamma-ray Bright Neutron Star Binary with an Extremely Low Mass Proto-White Dwarf
• Discovery of the variable optical counterpart of the redback pulsar PSR J2055+1545
• Evidence of intra-binary shock emission from the redback pulsar PSR J1048+2339
• The black widow pulsar J1641+8049 in the optical, radio and X-rays
• A GTC spectroscopic study of three spider pulsar companions: line-based temperatures, a new face-on redback, and improved mass constraints
• Hydrodynamical simulations of wind interaction in spider systems : A step toward understanding transitional millisecond pulsars
• Searching for Spider-Like Pulsars from TESS Ellipsoidal Lightcurves with X-ray counterparts