A Search for Sub-millisecond Pulsations in Unidentified FIRST and NVSS Radio Sources

Abstract

We have searched 92 unidentified sources from the FIRST and NVSS 1400 MHz radio survey catalogs for radio pulsations at 610 MHz. The selected radio sources are bright, have no identification with extragalactic objects, are point-like and are more than 5% linearly polarized. Our search was sensitive to sub-millisecond pulsations from pulsars with dispersion measures (DMs) less than 500 pc cm-3 in the absence of scattering. We have detected no pulsations from these sources and consider possible effects which might prevent detection. We conclude that as a population, these sources are unlikely to be pulsars.

8 pages, including 2 tables and 1 figure. Accepted for publication in AJ

References in corpus (4)

• The two-hour orbit of a binary millisecond X-ray pulsar
• Pulsars identified from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey
• A VLA Search for the Geminga Pulsar: A Bayesian Limit on a Scintillating Source
• Population synthesis of millisecond and submillisecond pulsars

Cited by in corpus (13)

• A Study of Multi-frequency Polarization Pulse Profiles of Millisecond Pulsars
• Discovery of ASKAP J173608.2-321635 as a Highly-Polarized Transient Point Source with the Australian SKA Pathfinder
• Detecting Pulsars with Interstellar Scintillation in Variance Images
• Searching for pulsars associated with polarised point sources using LOFAR: Initial discoveries from the TULIPP project
• Prospects for Discovering Pulsars in Future Continuum Surveys Using Variance Imaging
• A Search for Pulsars in Steep Spectrum Radio Sources
• Radio sources with ultra-high polarization
• Two Extreme Steep-Spectrum, Polarized Radio Sources Towards the Galactic Bulge
• Image-based searches for pulsar candidates using MWA VCS data
• Reprocessing of a Green Bank 43-meter Telescope Survey of Unidentified Bright Radio Sources for Pulsars and Radio Bursts
• A Search for Rapidly Spinning Pulsars and Fast Transients in Unidentified Radio Sources with the NRAO 43-Meter Telescope
• Evolutionary Self-Energy-Loss Effects in Compact Binary Systems: Importance of Rapid Rotation and of Equation of State
• Are the infrared-faint radio sources pulsars?