A survey for pulsars in EGRET error boxes

Abstract

As part of an effort to associate the unidentified EGRET gamma-ray sources with pulsars, error boxes for 19 sources were searched using Arecibo at 327-MHz. The sources were chosen to be out-of-plane and possibly associated with the Gould belt, a nearby starburst region with an enhanced production rate of core-collapse supernovae. The search revealed one new 597-ms pulsar, J2243+1518, within the error box of the EGRET source 3EG J2243+1509. The spin-down energy loss rate of the new pulsar is not nearly sufficient to power the gamma-ray source and so the pulsar is very unlikely to be associated. Simulations we have carried out show that any pulsars at Gould belt distances should have been detected by the survey. This suggests that either the EGRET sources associated with the Gould belt are not pulsars, or that the minimum of the pulsar luminosity function is lower than the ~1.5 mJy kpc^2 inferred from the population of normal pulsars.

5 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (5)

• The Parkes multibeam pulsar survey: III. Young pulsars & the discovery and timing of 200 pulsars
• Arecibo timing and single-pulse observations of 17 pulsars
• The Gamma Ray Pulsar Population
• Off-Beam Gamma-Ray Pulsars and Unidentified EGRET Sources in the Gould Belt
• Pulsars and Their Nebulae as EGRET Sources

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• Six New Millisecond Pulsars from Arecibo Searches of Fermi Gamma-Ray Sources
• Astrophysics in 2006
• A 350-MHz Green Bank Telescope Survey of Unassociated Fermi LAT Sources: Discovery and Timing of Ten Millisecond Pulsars
• Pulsar Results with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
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• Searching for Radio Pulsars in 3EG Sources at Urumqi Observatory