Serendipitous Discovery of a 431 ms Pulsar in the Background of Westerlund 1

Autor: Viviana Piga, Marta Burgay, Andrea Possenti, Alessandro Ridolfi, Maura Pilia, Nanda Rea, Rosalba Perna, Monica Colpi, Gianluca Israel
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Universe, Vol 10, Iss 7, p 274 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2218-1997
DOI: 10.3390/universe10070274
Popis: We report the discovery of PSR J1646−4545, a 431 ms isolated pulsar, in the direction of the young massive cluster Westerlund 1. The pulsar was found in data taken between the years 2005 and 2010 with the “Murriyang” Parkes radio telescope in Australia. Thanks to the numerous detections of the pulsar, we were able to derive a phase-connected timing solution spanning the whole data set. This allowed us to precisely locate the pulsar at the border of the cluster and to measure its spin-down rate. The latter implies a characteristic age of ∼25 Myr, about twice as large as the estimated age of Westerlund 1. The age of PSR J1646−4545, together with its dispersion measure of ∼1029 pc cm−3, more than twice the value predicted by the two main galactic electron density models for Westerlund 1, makes the association of the pulsar with the cluster highly unlikely. We also report on ramifications from the presence of a magnetar in Westerlund 1 and the apparent lack of ordinary radio pulsars.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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