HomeAstronomy & SpaceAstronomyNew double neutron star millisecond pulsar discovered

New double neutron star millisecond pulsar discovered

An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a rare double neutron star millisecond pulsar. The newfound binary pulsar is designated PSR J1325−6253. It consists of two neutron stars orbiting one another every 1.8 days. The study was published on arXiv.org.

The most rapidly rotating pulsars known as millisecond pulsars (MSPs). It is assumed that they are formed in binary systems when the initially more massive component turns into a neutron star. It then spun-up due to accretion of matter from the secondary star.

Some pulsars consist of two neutron stars. They are one of the most important classes of objects used to test and understand numerous astrophysical and fundamental physics phenomena. It includes general relativity in the strong-field regime.

To date only 21 DNS pulsars have been identified. Now astronomers led by Rahul Sengar of the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia report the newest addition to this short list of these objects which is PSR J1325−6253. The source was detected in a reprocessing of the High Time Resolution Universe South Low Latitude (HTRU-S LowLat) pulsar survey.

The study found that PSR J1325−6253 is a binary MSP with a spin period of 28.9 ms and orbital period of 1.81 days. Scientists suppose that the companion object is likely another neutron star.

PSR J1325−6253 has a dispersion measure of about 303.3 pc/cm3 and spin-down luminosity of 78 nonillion erg/s. The characteristic age of this pulsar was found to be 0.94 billion years. Then the distance to this object was measured to be at least 14,300 light years. Scientists underlined that the orbital eccentricity of PSR J1325−6253 is the lowest among any known DNS system in a wide orbit. They noted that such low eccentricity along with the relatively wide orbit of PSR J1325−6253 strongly suggests that this DNS is a result of an ultra-stripped electron-capture supernova explosion.

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