TY - JOUR
T1 - Optical detection of a variable millisecond pulsar companion in 47 Tucanae
AU - Edmonds, Peter D.
AU - Gilliland, Ronald L.
AU - Heinke, Craig O.
AU - Grindlay, Jonathan E.
AU - Camilo, Fernando
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful for discussions with and modeling help from Leandro Althaus. We thank Ata Sarajedini, Raja Guhathakurta, and Justin Howell for contributing to the photometric analysis, Hans Ritter and Andrew King for helpful comments on the manuscript, and Fred Rasio, Vicky Kalogera, and Kailash Sahu for discussions. This work was supported in part by STScI grant GO-8267.01-97A (P. D. E. and R. L. G.) and by NASA grant NAG5-9095 (F. C.).
PY - 2001/8/10
Y1 - 2001/8/10
N2 - Using results from radio and X-ray observations of millisecond pulsars in 47 Tucanae, and extensive Hubble Space Telescope U, V, and I imaging of the globular cluster core, we have derived a common astrometric solution good to less than 0″.1. A close positional coincidence is found for 47 Tue U, a 4.3 ms pulsar in a 0.429 day orbit, detected in radio and X-rays, with an mv = 20.9 blue star. Analysis of extensive time series data for this optical candidate shows a 0.004 mag semiamplitude variation at the period and phase expected from the radio ephemeris, and the optical variations are spatially coincident with the candidate. This provides secure optical detection of the white dwarf companion to the millisecond pulsar, the first such detection in a globular cluster, allowing for comparisons to recent models for such companions with dependencies on mass and age.
AB - Using results from radio and X-ray observations of millisecond pulsars in 47 Tucanae, and extensive Hubble Space Telescope U, V, and I imaging of the globular cluster core, we have derived a common astrometric solution good to less than 0″.1. A close positional coincidence is found for 47 Tue U, a 4.3 ms pulsar in a 0.429 day orbit, detected in radio and X-rays, with an mv = 20.9 blue star. Analysis of extensive time series data for this optical candidate shows a 0.004 mag semiamplitude variation at the period and phase expected from the radio ephemeris, and the optical variations are spatially coincident with the candidate. This provides secure optical detection of the white dwarf companion to the millisecond pulsar, the first such detection in a globular cluster, allowing for comparisons to recent models for such companions with dependencies on mass and age.
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U2 - 10.1086/323122
DO - 10.1086/323122
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0035839386
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 557
SP - L57-L60
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 1 PART 2
ER -