An extremely low-mass He white dwarf orbiting the millisecond pulsar J1342+2822B in the globular cluster M3

Abstract

We report on the discovery of the companion star to the millisecond pulsar J1342+2822B in the globular cluster M3. We exploited a combination of near-ultraviolet and optical observations acquired with the Hubble Space Telescope in order to search for the optical counterparts to the known millisecond pulsars in this cluster. At a position in excellent agreement with that of the radio pulsar J1342+2822B (M3B), we have identified a blue and faint object (mF275W \approx 22.45) that, in the color-magnitude diagram of the cluster, is located in the region of He core white dwarfs. From the comparison of the observed magnitudes with theoretical cooling tracks we have estimated the physical properties of the companion star: it has a mass of only 0.19 \pm 0.02 Msun, a surface temperature of 12 \pm 1 x 10^3 K and a cooling age of 1.0\pm0.2 Gyr. Its progenitor was likely a ~ 0.84 M star and the bulk of the mass-transfer activity occurred during the sub-giant branch phase. The companion mass, combined with the pulsar mass function, implies that this system is observed almost edge-on and that the neutron star has a mass of 1.1 \pm 0.3 Msun, in agreement with the typical values measured for recycled neutron stars in these compact binary systems. We have also identified a candidate counterpart to the wide and eccentric binary millisecond pulsar J1342+2822D. It is another white dwarf with a He core and a mass of 0.22 \pm 0.2 Msun, implying that the system is observed at a high inclination angle and hosts a typical NS with a mass of 1.3 \pm 0.3 Msun. At the moment, the large uncertainty on the radio position of this millisecond pulsar prevents us from robustly concluding that the detected star is its optical counterpart.

Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (16)

• Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star
• A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary
• The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters. I. Overview of the Project and Detection of Multiple Stellar Populations
• Dynamical age differences among coeval star clusters as revealed by blue stragglers
• The relativistic pulsar-white dwarf binary PSR J1738+0333 I. Mass determination and evolutionary history
• Formation and evolution of compact binaries in globular clusters: I.Binaries with white dwarfs
• A Massive Neutron Star in the Globular Cluster M5
• A 1.4-GHz Arecibo Survey for Pulsars in Globular Clusters
• Ceci n'est pas a globular cluster: the metallicity distribution of the stellar system Terzan 5
• The timescale of low-mass proto-helium white dwarf evolution
• The age of the young bulge-like population in the stellar system Terzan5: linking the Galactic bulge to the high-z Universe
• Long-term observations of the pulsars in 47 Tucanae. I. A study of four elusive binary systems
• PSR J1738+0333: The First Millisecond Pulsar + Pulsating White Dwarf Binary
• Radio timing and optical photometry of the black widow system PSR J1518+0204C in the globular cluster M5
• The Optical Counterpart to the Accreting Millisecond X-ray Pulsar SAX J1748.9-2021 in the Globular Cluster NGC 6440
• Radio Timing and Optical Photometry of the Black Widow System PSR J1953+1846A in the Globular Cluster M71

Cited by in corpus (14)

• A pulsar in a binary with a compact object in the mass gap between neutron stars and black holes
• Digging for relics of the past: the ancient and obscured bulge globular cluster NGC6256
• Expanding the time domain of multiple populations: evidences of nitrogen variations in the ~1.5 Gyr old star cluster NGC 1783
• High-resolution extinction map in the direction of the strongly obscured bulge fossil fragment Liller 1
• Convection and rotation boosted prescription of magnetic braking: application to the formation of extremely low-mass white dwarfs
• Two New Black Widow Millisecond Pulsars In M28
• A young white dwarf orbiting PSR J1835-3259B in the bulge globular cluster NGC 6652
• A comparison of millisecond pulsar populations between globular clusters and the Galactic field
• Chandra and HST Studies of Six Millisecond Pulsars in the Globular Cluster M13
• Spectral analysis of the quiescent low-mass X-ray binary in the globular cluster M30
• Searching for exotic object companions in the dense core of NGC 362: a multi-wavelength and multi-epoch photometric analysis
• On the effect of pulsar evaporation on the cooling of white dwarfs
• Detection of a white dwarf orbiting a Carbon-Oxygen depleted blue straggler in 47 Tucanae
• Identification and characterization of optical companions to the population of millisecond pulsars in the globular cluster M3