Normalized pulse profiles created from the sum of Parkes UWL data from PSR J1032−5804 as a function of observation frequency. Credit: arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2311.14880
Using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), astronomers discovered a new pulsar, which was given the designation PSR J1032−5804. The new pulsar turned out to be relatively young and very scattered. The discovery was reported in a paper published on November 25 on the preprint server. arXiv.
Pulsars are rotating neutron stars with intense magnetic fields, emitting a beam of electromagnetic radiation. They are usually identified as short bursts of radio transmission; however, some of them are also observed using optical, x-ray and gamma-ray telescopes.
Some radio pulsars are broadcast when radio pulses from these objects pass through the turbulent interstellar medium and multipath propagation causes temporal and spatial scattering. In general, widely dispersed pulsars are difficult to detect for the majority of astronomical surveys.
Now, a team of astronomers led by Ziteng Wang of Curtin University in Australia reports the detection of such a highly dispersed pulsar. PSR J1032−5804 was identified in the ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) survey during a search for circularly polarized sources. Follow-up observations using the 64 m Parkes radio telescope and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) confirmed its pulsar nature.
The newly discovered pulsar is young, having a characteristic age of 34,600 years. It has a long scattering time scale at 1 GHz, of approximately 3.84 seconds, making it the third most widely scattered pulsar known to date. This explains why PSR J1032−5804 was not detected by previous pulsar surveys.
According to the study, PSR J1032−5804 has a period of 78.7 milliseconds, a dispersion measurement of approximately 819 pc/cm3and rotation measurement of approximately -2,000 rad/m2. The pulsar has a surface magnetic field strength of about 1.7 TG and a descending luminosity of 2.9 undecillion erg/s.
ASKAP observations indicate that PSR J1032−5804 is a potential source of GPS (gigahertz peak spectrum) and may host a pulsar wind nebula (PWN) and a supernova remnant (SNR) in its local environment. However, further studies are needed to confirm this.
Summarizing the results, the paper’s authors noted that the discovery of PSR J1032−5804 is promising in the context of future discoveries of highly dispersed pulsars.
“We can identify more highly dispersed pulsars like PSR J1032−5804 thanks to the high sensitivity and good resolution data from ongoing ASKAP surveys. In the future, with the construction of next generation radio telescopes such as the Square Kilometer Array , the Deep Synoptic Array and the next-generation Very Large Array, research in the imaging field will become a more powerful tool for discovering extreme pulsars (e.g., highly accelerated, highly dispersed and highly intermittent) that are difficult to find via traditional surveys,” the researchers concluded.
More information:
Ziteng Wang et al, Discovery of a young, highly dispersed PSR J1032-5804 pulsar with the Australian SKA Pathfinder, arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2311.14880
Journal information:
arXiv
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