Diagnosing pulsar winds in black-widow, redback, and other binary millisecond pulsar systems

Abstract

Binary systems composed of a recycled millisecond pulsar and a stellar companion in close orbit could be excellent sites to diagnose pulsar winds. In such systems, the pulsar outflow irradiates and heats up the companion atmosphere, which can lead to the observation of strong day/night modulations in temperature. We demonstrate with particle shower simulations that the particle energy of the wind affects the heating depth in the atmosphere: the wind heat can be deposited above or below the photosphere, leading to different signatures in the observed spectra. We apply our method to four specific systems: We find that systems with cool night side companions showing strong temperature variations can give interesting lower limits on the particle energy in the winds. In particular, if the companion night side of PSR B1957+20 were to be suddenly irradiated, deep heating would only take place if particles with energy > 100 TeV were present. Observational evidence of deep heating in this system thus suggests that i) such particles exist in the pulsar wind and/or ii) binary evolution non-trivially takes the companion to the observed temperature asymmetry. Besides, the observed temperature difference can be maintained only with particle energies of the order of 100 MeV.

accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Main Journal

References in corpus (52)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The Second Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• A Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Link
• Fermi Large Area Telescope Bright Gamma-ray Source List
• Peering into the dark side: magnesium lines establish a massive neutron star in PSR J2215+5135
• Evidence for a Massive Neutron Star from a Radial-Velocity Study of the Companion to the Black Widow Pulsar PSR B1957+20
• A 2.1 Solar Mass Pulsar Measured by Relativistic Orbital Decay
• Magnetars in the Metagalaxy: An Origin for Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays in the Nearby Universe
• Formation of millisecond pulsars with CO white dwarf companions - II. Accretion, spin-up, true ages and comparison to MSPs with He white dwarf companions
• On Pulsar Distance Measurements and their Uncertainties
• Discovery of the Optical Counterparts to Four Energetic Fermi Millisecond Pulsars
• An X-ray Nebula Associated with the Millisecond Pulsar B1957+20
• Surrounded by Spiders! New Black Widows and Redbacks in the Galactic Field
• Intra-Binary Shock Heating of Black Widow Companions
• Optical spectroscopy and demographics of redback millisecond pulsar binaries
• The theory of pulsar winds and nebulae
• Is FIRST J102347.6+003841 Really a Cataclysmic Binary?
• The Strongest Magnetic Fields on the Coolest Brown Dwarfs
• The Orbit and Companion of Probable gamma-ray Pulsar J2339-0533
• A Metal-Rich Low-Gravity Companion to a Massive Millisecond Pulsar
• PSR J1723-2837: An Eclipsing Binary Radio Millisecond Pulsar
• GMRT discovery of PSR J1544+4937, an eclipsing black-widow pulsar identified with a Fermi LAT source
• The light curve of the companion to PSR B1957+20
• X-ray studies of the Black Widow Pulsar PSR B1957+20
• Six millisecond pulsars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope and the radio/gamma-ray connection of millisecond pulsars
• A Spectroscopic Study of the Extreme Black Widow PSR J1311-3430
• The fate of ultrahigh energy nuclei in the immediate environment of young fast-rotating pulsars
• Properties and Evolution of the Redback Millisecond Pulsar Binary PSR J2129-0429
• Gamma-ray Timing of Redback PSR J2339-0533: Hints for Gravitational Quadrupole Moment Changes
• On ultra-high energy cosmic ray acceleration at the termination shock of young pulsar winds
• Optical Counterparts of Two Fermi Millisecond Pulsars: PSR J1301+0833 and PSR J1628-3205
• Observations and Modeling of the Companions of Short Period Binary Millisecond Pulsars: Evidence for High-Mass Neutron Stars
• Improved synthetic spectra of helium-core white dwarf stars
• An active, asynchronous companion to a redback millisecond pulsar
• Variable Heating and Flaring of Three Redback Millisecond Pulsar Companions
• Hydrogen model atmospheres for white dwarf stars
• Multi-wavelength observations of a new redback millisecond pulsar candidate: 3FGL J0954.8-3948
• Lyman-alpha wing absorption in cool white dwarf stars
• Identification of the Optical Counterpart of Fermi Black Widow Millisecond Pulsar PSR J1544+4937
• A Dense Companion to the Short-Period Millisecond Pulsar Binary PSR J0636+5128
• The ultra-cool white dwarf companion of PSR J0751+1807
• Different twins in the millisecond pulsar recycling scenario: optical polarimetry of PSR J1023+0038 and XSS J12270-4859
• Nature of eclipsing pulsars
• A New Determination of the Spectra and Luminosity Function of Gamma-Ray Millisecond Pulsars
• Infrared absorption of dense helium and its importance in the atmospheres of cool white dwarfs
• The ultracool helium-atmosphere white dwarf companion of PSR J0740+6620?
• PSR J0636+5128: A Heated Companion in a Tight Orbit
• Do asteroids evaporate near pulsars? Induction heating by pulsar waves revisited
• Mid-UV Studies of the Transitional Millisecond Pulsars XSS J12270-4859 and PSR J1023+0038 During Their Radio Pulsar States
• Progenitor neutron stars of the lightest and heaviest millisecond pulsars
• Chandra Observations of Black-Widow Pulsars

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Measuring the mass of the black widow PSR J1555-2908
• A model for redistributing heat over the surface of irradiated spider companions
• Optical photometry of two transitional millisecond pulsars in the radio pulsar state
• The peculiar chemical abundance of the transitional millisecond pulsar PSR J1023+0038 -- Li enhancement
• Analytical model of millisecond pulsar PSR J0514-4002A