Radio timing constraints on the mass of the binary pulsar PSR J1528-3146

Abstract

PSR J1528-3146 is a 60.8 ms pulsar orbiting a heavy white dwarf (WD) companion, with an orbital period of 3.18 d. This work aimed at characterizing the pulsar's astrometric, spin and orbital parameters by analyzing timing measurements conducted at the Parkes, MeerKAT and Nançay radio telescopes over almost two decades. The measurement of post-Keplerian perturbations to the pulsar's orbit can be used to constrain the masses of the two component stars of the binary, and in turn inform us on the history of the system. We analyzed timing data from the Parkes, MeerKAT and Nançay radio telescopes collected over $\sim$16 yrs, obtaining a precise rotation ephemeris for PSR J1528-3146. A Bayesian analysis of the timing data was carried out to constrain the masses of the two components and the orientation of the orbit. We further analyzed the polarization properties of the pulsar, in order to constrain the orientations of the magnetic axis and of the line-of-sight with respect to the spin axis. We measured a significant rate of advance of periastron for the first time, and put constraints on the Shapiro delay in the system and on the rate of change of the projected semi-major axis of the pulsar's orbit. The Bayesian analysis yielded measurements for the pulsar and companion masses of respectively $M_p=1.61_{-0.13}^{+0.14}$ M${}_{\odot }$ and $M_c=1.33_{-0.07}^{+0.08}$ M${}_{\odot }$ (68\% C.L.), confirming that the companion is indeed massive. This companion mass as well as other characteristics of PSR J1528$-$3146 make this pulsar very similar to PSR J2222-0137, a 32.8 ms pulsar orbiting a WD whose heavy mass ($\sim 1.32$ M${}_{\odot }$) was unique among pulsar-WD systems until now. Our measurements therefore suggest common evolutionary scenarios for PSRs J1528-3146 and J2222-0137.

13 pages, 8 figures, abstract shortened to match astro-ph limit

References in corpus (18)

• TEMPO2, a new pulsar timing package. I: Overview
• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• The mass distribution and gravitational potential of the Milky Way
• PSRCHIVE and PSRFITS An Open Approach to Radio Pulsar Data Storage and Analysis
• Tempo2, a new pulsar timing package. II: The timing model and precision estimates
• Incremental Fermi Large Area Telescope Fourth Source Catalog
• Formation of millisecond pulsars with CO white dwarf companions - II. Accretion, spin-up, true ages and comparison to MSPs with He white dwarf companions
• The MeerKAT Telescope as a Pulsar Facility: System verification and early science results from MeerTime
• A Survey of 56 Mid-latitude EGRET Error Boxes for Radio Pulsars
• Closing a spontaneous-scalarization window with binary pulsars
• On the beam properties of radio pulsars with interpulse emission
• PSR J2222--0137. I. Improved physical parameters for the system
• Discovery of Five Recycled Pulsars in a High Galactic Latitude Survey
• The Relativistic Binary Programme on MeerKAT: Science objectives and first results
• The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT IV: Polarisation properties of young, energetic pulsars
• Searches for Shapiro delay in seven binary pulsars using the MeerKAT telescope
• A precise mass measurement of PSR J2045+3633
• Optical Detection of Two Intermediate Mass Binary Pulsar Companions