Connecting the Young Pulsars in Milky Way Globular Clusters with White Dwarf Mergers and the M81 Fast Radio Burst

Abstract

The detections of four apparently young radio pulsars in the Milky Way globular clusters are difficult to reconcile with standard neutron star formation scenarios associated with massive star evolution. Here we discuss formation of these young pulsars through white dwarf mergers in dynamically-old clusters that have undergone core collapse. Based on observed properties of magnetic white dwarfs, we argue neutron stars formed via white dwarf merger are born with spin periods of roughly $10-100$ms and magnetic fields of roughly $10^{11}-10^{13}$G. As these neutron stars spin down via magnetic dipole radiation, they naturally reproduce the four observed young pulsars in the Milky Way clusters. Rates inferred from $N$-body cluster simulations as well as the binarity, host cluster properties, and cluster offsets observed for these young pulsars hint further at a white dwarf merger origin. These young pulsars may be descendants of neutron stars capable of powering fast radio bursts analogous to the bursts observed recently in a globular cluster in M81.

5 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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• Lower-mass-gap Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters
• The FAST Globular Cluster Pulsar Survey (GC FANS)
• Searching for Magnetar Binaries Disrupted by Core-Collapse Supernovae
• A MeerKAT view of the pulsars in the globular cluster NGC 6522
• Single Millisecond Pulsars from Dynamical Interaction Processes in Dense Star Clusters
• Predicting the rate of fast radio bursts in globular clusters from binary black hole observations
• Collapse of Magnetized White Dwarfs as site of Heavy Element Formation and Kilonova Signal
• Discovery of a millisecond pulsar associated with Terzan 6
• Gamma-ray Signatures of r-Process Radioactivity from the Collapse of Magnetized White Dwarfs
• A candidate to the long sought optical counterpart to the Rapid Burster in the bulge fossil fragment Liller 1