PSR J1922+37: a 1.9-second pulsar discovered in the direction of the old open cluster NGC 6791

Abstract

More than 300 pulsars have been discovered in Galactic globular clusters; however, none have been found in open clusters. Here we present results from 20-hour pulsar searching observations in seven open clusters with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Our first discovery is a 1.9-second pulsar (J1922+37) found in the direction of the old open cluster NGC 6791. The measured dispersion measure (DM) implies a distance of 4.79 kpc and 8.92 kpc based on the NE2001 and YMW16 electron density models, respectively. Given the large uncertainty of DM distance estimates, it is likely that PSR J1922+37 is indeed a member of NGC 6791, for which the distance is $4.19\pm 0.02$ kpc based on Gaia Data Release 3. If confirmed, PSR J1922+37 will be the first pulsar found in Galactic open clusters. We outline future observations that can confirm this pulsar-open cluster association and discuss the general prospects of finding pulsars in open clusters.

arXiv comment10 pages, 4 tables, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJL

References in corpus (43)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• PSRCHIVE and PSRFITS An Open Approach to Radio Pulsar Data Storage and Analysis
• The Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Project
• Global survey of star clusters in the Milky Way II. The catalogue of basic parameters
• DSPSR: Digital Signal Processing Software for Pulsar Astronomy
• The Fundamental Performance of FAST with 19-beam Receiver at L Band
• Considerations for a Multi-beam Multi-purpose Survey with FAST
• Updated parameters of 1743 open clusters based on Gaia DR2
• Formation and evolution of compact binaries in globular clusters: II. Binaries with neutron stars
• A Neutron Star with a Massive Progenitor in Westerlund 1
• The Timing of Nine Globular Cluster Pulsars
• The FAST Galactic Plane Pulsar Snapshot survey: I. Project design and pulsar discoveries
• Improving the open cluster census. III. Using cluster masses, radii, and dynamics to create a cleaned open cluster catalogue
• A Comprehensive Study of Neutron Star Retention in Globular Clusters
• Long-term observations of the pulsars in 47 Tucanae - II. Proper motions, accelerations and jerks
• Discovery of short-period binary millisecond pulsars in four globular clusters
• A New Search Technique for Short Orbital Period Binary Pulsars
• Arecibo Pulsar Survey Using ALFA. IV. Mock Spectrometer Data Analysis, Survey Sensitivity, and the Discovery of 41 Pulsars
• Stellar Encounter Rate in Galactic Globular Clusters
• On the disruption of pulsar and X-ray binaries in globular clusters
• Using long-term millisecond pulsar timing to obtain physical characteristics of the bulge globular cluster Terzan 5
• Optimal periodicity searching: Revisiting the Fast Folding Algorithm for large-scale pulsar surveys
• A Multi-Band Catalog of 10978 Star Clusters, Associations and Candidates in the Milky Way
• The High Time Resolution Universe survey XIV: Discovery of 23 pulsars through GPU-accelerated reprocessing
• Evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole in the globular cluster NGC 6624
• FAST Globular Cluster Pulsar Survey: Twenty-Four Pulsars Discovered in Fifteen Globular Clusters
• A new standard: Age and distance for the open cluster NGC 6791 from the eclipsing binary member V20
• Young Radio Pulsars in Galactic Globular Clusters
• Dynamical Formation of Millisecond Pulsars in Globular Clusters
• A New Look at the Old Star Cluster NGC 6791
• Evidence of tidal distortions and mass loss from the old open cluster NGC 6791
• The absolute motion of the peculiar cluster NGC6791
• Six New Recycled Globular Cluster Pulsars Discovered with the Green Bank Telescope
• An empirical Bayesian analysis applied to the globular cluster pulsar population
• Four pulsar discoveries in NGC 6624 by TRAPUM using MeerKAT
• Discovery of 37 new pulsars through GPU-accelerated reprocessing of archival data of the Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey
• A discovery of Two Slow Pulsars with FAST: "Ronin" from the Globular Cluster M15
• FAST Discovery of Eight Isolated Millisecond Pulsars in NGC 6517
• Open Clusters IC 4665 and Cr 359 and a Probable Birthplace of the Pulsar PSR B1929+10
• A dispersion excess from pulsar wind nebulae and supernova remnants: Implications for pulsars and FRBs
• Discovery of a millisecond pulsar associated with Terzan 6

Cited by in corpus (2)

• A Census of Pulsars in Possible Association with Galactic Open Clusters
• High-Priority Compact-Object Candidates in Young Clusters from the \textit{Gaia} DR3 Non-Single-Star Catalog