A radio transient with unusually slow periodic emission

Abstract

The high-frequency radio sky is bursting with synchrotron transients from massive stellar explosions and accretion events, but the low-frequency radio sky has so far been quiet beyond the Galactic pulsar population and the long-term scintillation of AGN. The low-frequency band, however, is sensitive to exotic coherent and polarised radio emission processes such as electron cyclotron maser emission from flaring M-dwarfs [1], stellar magnetospheric plasma interactions with exoplanets [2], and a population of steep-spectrum pulsars [3], making Galactic plane searches a prospect for blind transient discovery. Here we report an analysis of archival low-frequency radio data that reveals a periodic, low-frequency radio transient. We find that the source pulses every 18.18 minutes, an unusual periodicity not previously observed. The emission is highly linearly polarised, bright, persists for 30--60 s on each occurrence, and is visible across a broad frequency range. At times the pulses comprise short ($<0.5$-s) duration bursts; at others, a smoother profile is observed. These profiles evolve on timescales of hours. By measuring the dispersion of the radio pulses with respect to frequency, we have localised the source to within our own Galaxy, and suggest that it could be an ultra-long period magnetar.

arXiv comment4 main figures, 9 extended figures

References in corpus (36)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The Swift X-ray Telescope
• The Murchison Widefield Array: the Square Kilometre Array Precursor at low radio frequencies
• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• WSClean: an implementation of a fast, generic wide-field imager for radio astronomy
• The McGill Magnetar Catalog
• Faraday Rotation Measure Synthesis
• GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey I: A low-frequency extragalactic catalogue
• The High Time Resolution Universe Pulsar Survey I: System configuration and initial discoveries
• GLEAM: The GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA survey
• The Phase II Murchison Widefield Array: Design Overview
• A radio pulsing white dwarf binary star
• Radio Pulsar Death Line Revisited: Is PSR J2144-3933 Anomalous?
• A powerful bursting radio source towards the Galactic Centre
• Coherent radio emission from a quiescent red dwarf indicative of star-planet interaction
• Radio emission evolution, polarimetry and multifrequency single pulse analysis of the radio magnetar PSR J1622-4950
• Radio efficiency of pulsars
• Parametrising Epoch of Reionization foregrounds: A deep survey of low-frequency point-source spectra with the MWA
• The fundamental plane for radio magnetars
• The variability timescales and brightness temperatures of radio flares from stars to supermassive black holes
• Understanding Instrumental Stokes Leakage in Murchison Widefield Array Polarimetry
• LOFAR MSSS: Detection of a low-frequency radio transient in 400 hrs of monitoring of the North Celestial Pole
• The challenges of low-frequency radio polarimetry: lessons from the Murchison Widefield Array
• Real-time detection of an extreme scattering event: constraints on Galactic plasma lenses
• GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey II: Galactic Plane $345^{\circ }<l<67^{\circ }$, $180^{\circ }<l<240^{\circ }$
• Exploring the Transient Radio Sky with VLITE: Early Results
• The Galactic Faraday depth sky revisited
• 154 MHz detection of faint, polarized flares from UV Ceti
• An investigation of pulsar searching techniques with the Fast Folding Algorithm
• The POlarised GLEAM Survey (POGS) I: First Results from a Low-Frequency Radio Linear Polarisation Survey of the Southern Sky
• New methods to constrain the radio transient rate: results from a survey of four fields with LOFAR
• The POlarised GLEAM Survey (POGS) II: Results from an All-Sky Rotation Measure Synthesis Survey at Long Wavelengths
• High-cadence observations and variable spin behaviour of magnetar Swift J1818.0-1607 after its outburst
• Symmetric Achromatic Variability in Active Galaxies -- A Powerful New Gravitational Lensing Probe?
• Discovery of a steep-spectrum low-luminosity pulsar with the Murchison Widefield Array
• A GMRT 150 MHz Search for Variables and Transients in Stripe 82

Cited by in corpus (70)

• Discovery of a radio emitting neutron star with an ultra-long spin period of 76 seconds
• A long-period radio transient active for three decades
• An emission state switching radio transient with a 54 minute period
• Evidence for an abundant old population of Galactic ultra long period magnetars and implications for fast radio bursts
• Long-period Pulsars as Possible Outcomes of Supernova Fallback Accretion
• Quasi-periodic sub-pulse structure as a unifying feature for radio-emitting neutron stars
• The Commensal Real-time ASKAP Fast Transient incoherent-sum survey
• Sporadic radio pulses from a white dwarf binary at the orbital period
• The emission of interpulses by a 6.45-hour period coherent radio transient
• Status and progress of China SKA Regional Centre prototype
• GLEAM-X J16279.5-523504.3 as a White Dwarf Pulsar
• Pushchino multibeam pulsar search: I. Targeted search of weak pulsars
• Constraining the nature of the 18-min periodic radio transient GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504.3 via multi-wavelength observations and magneto-thermal simulations
• The discovery and significance of fast radio bursts
• The game of life on a magnetar crust: from $\gamma$-ray flares to FRBs
• Spectroscopic Detection of a 2.9-hour Orbit in a Long Period Radio Transient
• Pulsar revival in neutron star mergers: multi-messenger prospects for the discovery of pre-merger coherent radio emission
• Evolutionary implications of a magnetar interpretation for GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504.3
• Detection of X-ray Emission from a Bright Long-Period Radio Transient
• Discussions on the nature of GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504.3
• A highly magnetized long-period radio transient exhibiting unusual emission features
• Evolution of the long-period pulsar GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504.3
• CHIME/FRB Discovery of an Unusual Circularly Polarized Long-Period Radio Transient with an Accelerating Spin Period
• Radio Variable and Transient Sources on Minute Timescales in the ASKAP Pilot Surveys
• Evolution of the long-period pulsar PSR J0901-4046
• A census of compact sources at 162MHz: first data release from the MWA Phase II IPS Survey
• An Overview of Compact Star Populations and Some of Its Open Problems
• Testing afterglow models of FRB 200428 with early post-burst observations of SGR 1935+2154
• A new pulsar candidate in 47 Tucanae discovered with MeerKAT imaging
• The radio shut-off, glitch, and X-ray burst in 1E 1547.0-5408 interpreted through magnetic reconfiguration
• Broadband Polarized Radio Emission Detected from Starlink Satellites Below 100 MHz with NenuFAR
• Radio Transients and Variables in the Tenth Deeper, Wider, Faster Observing Run
• Magnetar structure in non-linear electrodynamics with mixed poloidal-toroidal fields
• Prospects for Time-Domain and Multi-Messenger Science with eXTP
• The Galactic population of magnetars : a simulation-based inference study
• The Enigma of GLEAM-X~J162759.5-523504.3
• Discovery of an Extremely Intermittent Periodic Radio Source
• Finding radio transients with anomaly detection and active learning based on volunteer classifications
• New upper limits on low-frequency radio emission from isolated neutron stars with LOFAR
• On the initial spin periods of magnetars born in weak supernova explosions and their gravitational wave radiation
• Search for pulsars with periods of more than two seconds at declinations from +21${}^o$ to +42${}^o$
• Apparently ultra-long period radio sources from self-lensed pulsar-black hole binaries
• Revealing the nature of long-period transients with space-based gravitational-wave interferometers
• On Ultra-long Period (53.8 min) Pulsar ASKAP J1935+2148: Coherent Radio Emission Triggered by Local Superstrong Magnetic Reconnection
• X-ray nondetection of PSR J0250+5854
• Enhanced particle acceleration in a pulsar wind interacting with a companion
• SPARKESX: Single-dish PARKES data sets for finding the uneXpected -- A data challenge
• Probing magnetar formation channels with high-precision astrometry: The progress of VLBA astrometry of the fastest-spinning magnetar Swift J1818.0-1607
• Electron Cyclotron Maser Emission as the Driving Mechanism in Long-Period Radio Transients
• An RFSoC-based F-engine for ARGOS
• The Northern High Time Resolution Universe pulsar survey: II. Single-pulse search set-up and simulations
• An unidentified Fermi source emitting radio bursts in the Galactic bulge
• Identifying Long Radio Transients with Accompanying X-Ray Emission as Disk-Jet Precessing Black Holes: The Case of ASKAP J1832-0911
• GReX: An Instrument Overview and New Upper Limits on the Galactic FRB Population
• GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array survey eXtended (GLEAM-X) I: Survey Description and Initial Data Release
• Search for pulsars in an area with coordinates 3h < α< 4h and +21o < δ< +42o
• Spin-down of a pulsar with a yielding crust
• Deep Synoptic Array Science: Searching for Long Duration Radio Transients with the DSA-110
• A Target Search for Fast Radio Bursts Associated with Two Fast Blue Optical Transients: AT2018cow and CSS161010
• Spectral-line performance of low-frequency radio telescope arrays: SKA-Low stations
• 21 years of Astronomy at Warwick: celebrating the legacy of Prof. Tom Marsh
• Search of nearby resolved neutron stars among optical sources
• Radio luminosity of GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504.3: does it really exceed the spin-down power of the pulsar?
• The X-ray emission of the long-period transient and accreting cataclysmic variable ASKAP J174508.9-505149
• A Falsifiable Timing Test for the Double-White-Dwarf Model of Long-Period Transients
• Modeling isolated magnetar spin-down evolution and implications for long-period radio transients
• Physics beyond the Standard Model with the DSA-2000
• A survey for radio pulsars and transients in the 10 pc region around Sgr A*
• Dynamics of magnetoviscous warped discs around compact objects
• The Northern High Time Resolution Universe pulsar survey: III. Single-pulse search continuation, follow-up observations, and initial results