On the nature of the intermittent pulsar PSR B1931+24

Abstract

PSR B1931+24 is the first intermittent radio pulsar discovered to date, characterized by a 0.8 s pulsation which turns on and off quasi-periodically every ~35 days, with a duty cycle of ~10%. We present here X-ray and optical observations of PSR B1931+24 performed with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Isaac Newton Telescope, respectively. Simultaneous monitoring from the Jodrell Bank Observatory showed that this intermittent pulsar was in the radio-on phase during our observations. We do not find any X-ray or optical counterpart to PSR B1931+24 translating into an upper limit of ~2x10^{31} erg/s on the X-ray luminosity, and of g' > 22.6 on the optical magnitude. If the pulsar is isolated, these limits cannot constrain the dim X-ray and optical emission expected for a pulsar of that age (~1.6 Myr). We discuss the possibility that the quasi-periodic intermittent behavior of PSR B1931+24 is due to the presence of a low mass companion star or gaseous planet, tight with the pulsar in an eccentric orbit. In order to constrain the parameters of this putative binary system we re-analysed the pulsar radio timing residuals and we found that (if indeed hosted in a binary system), PSR B1931+24 should have a very low mass companion and an orbit of low inclination.

arXiv comment6 pages; accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (7)

• The second US Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC2)
• A periodically active pulsar giving insight into magnetospheric physics
• The Neutron Stars of Soft X-Ray Transients
• Rocking the Lighthouse: Circumpulsar Asteroids and Radio Intermittency
• On the origins of part-time radio pulsars
• MHD Simulations of Bondi Accretion to a Star in the "Propeller" Regime
• Studies of Neutron Stars at Optical/IR Wavelengths

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Radio and X-ray observations of the intermittent pulsar J1832+0029
• Two long-term intermittent pulsars discovered in the PALFA Survey
• Pulsar state switching, timing noise and free precession
• Long-term Radio Observations of the Intermittent Pulsar B1931+24
• A search for planetary companions around 800 pulsars from the Jodrell Bank pulsar timing programme
• General Relativistic Magnetospheres of Slowly Rotating and Oscillating Magnetized Neutron Stars
• Radio observations of two intermittent pulsars: PSRs J1832+0029 and J1841-0500
• Hunting for radio emission from the intermittent pulsar J1107-5907 at low frequencies
• Towards a theory of extremely intermittent pulsars II: Asteroids at a close distance
• Towards a theory of extremely intermittent pulsars I: Does something orbits PSR B1931 + 24 ?
• Probing fundamental physics with pulsars