A search for radio pulsars around low-mass white dwarfs

Abstract

Low-mass white dwarfs can either be produced in low-mass X-ray binaries by stable mass transfer to a neutron star, or in a common-envelope phase with a heavier white dwarf companion. We have searched 8 low-mass white dwarf candidates recently identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey for radio pulsations from pulsar companions, using the Green Bank Telescope at 340MHz. We have found no pulsations down to flux densities of 0.6-0.8 mJy/kpc^2 and conclude that a given low-mass helium-core white dwarf has a probability of < 0.18+-0.05 of being in a binary with a radio pulsar.

arXiv comment4 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (24)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• Neutron Star Structure and the Equation of State
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• A Double-Pulsar System - A Rare Laboratory for Relativistic Gravity and Plasma Physics
• Gravitational Waves Probe the Coalescence Rate of Massive Black Hole Binaries
• A Catalog of Spectroscopically Confirmed White Dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4
• The characteristics of millisecond pulsar emission: I. Spectra, pulse shapes and the beaming fraction
• Twenty-One Millisecond Pulsars in Terzan 5 Using the Green Bank Telescope
• Young core collapse supernova remnants and their supernovae
• Precision Timing Measurements of PSR J1012+5307
• A Catalog of Spectroscopically Identified White Dwarf Stars in the First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• A test of general relativity from the three-dimensional orbital geometry of a binary pulsar
• Gravitational waves from cosmological compact binaries
• The masses of the millisecond pulsar J1012+5307 and its white-dwarf companion
• Binaries Like to be Twins: Implications for Doubly Degenerate Binaries, the Supernova Ia Rate and Other Interacting Binaries
• Diffusion and the occurrence of hydrogen shell flashes in helium white dwarf stars
• The masses of PSR J1911-5958A and its white dwarf companion
• The ages and colours of cool helium-core white dwarf stars
• Discovery of radio pulsations from the X-ray pulsar J0205+6449 in supernova remnant 3C58 with the Green Bank Telescope
• A Helium White Dwarf of Extremely Low Mass
• Binary and Millisecond Pulsars at the New Millennium
• The mass ratio distribution of short period double degenerate stars
• Temperature and cooling age of the white dwarf companion of PSR J0218+4232

Cited by in corpus (14)

• The ELM Survey. VIII. 98 Double White Dwarf Binaries
• On type Ia supernovae and the formation of single low-mass white dwarfs
• The ELM Survey. IV. 24 White Dwarf Merger Systems
• The Lowest Mass White Dwarf
• The Discovery of Binary White Dwarfs that will Merge within 500 Myr
• The Discovery of a Companion to the Lowest Mass White Dwarf
• A Radio Search For Pulsar Companions To SDSS Low-Mass White Dwarfs
• The Mass Distribution of Companions to Low-Mass White Dwarfs
• The Factory and the Beehive. IV. A Comprehensive Study of the Rotation X-ray Activity Relation in Praesepe and the Hyades
• No Neutron Star Companion To The Lowest Mass SDSS White Dwarf
• A search for radio pulsations from neutron star companions of four subdwarf B stars
• Massive Double White Dwarfs and the AM CVn Birthrate
• A search for pulsars in subdwarf B binary systems and discovery of giant-pulse emitting PSR J0533-4524
• A Search for Pulsar Companions Around Low-Mass White Dwarfs