MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array parallaxes and proper motions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Shamohammadi, Mohsen, Bailes, Matthew, Flynn, Christopher, Reardon, Daniel J., Shannon, Ryan M., Buchner, Sarah, Cameron, Andrew D., Camilo, Fernando, Coronigu, Alessandro, Geyer, Marisa, Kramer, Michael, Miles, Matthew, Spiewak, Renee
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Shamohammadi, Mohsen
Bailes, Matthew
Flynn, Christopher
Reardon, Daniel J.
Shannon, Ryan M.
Buchner, Sarah
Cameron, Andrew D.
Camilo, Fernando
Coronigu, Alessandro
Geyer, Marisa
Kramer, Michael
Miles, Matthew
Spiewak, Renee
author_facet Shamohammadi, Mohsen
Bailes, Matthew
Flynn, Christopher
Reardon, Daniel J.
Shannon, Ryan M.
Buchner, Sarah
Cameron, Andrew D.
Camilo, Fernando
Coronigu, Alessandro
Geyer, Marisa
Kramer, Michael
Miles, Matthew
Spiewak, Renee
contents We have determined positions, proper motions, and parallaxes of $77$ millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from $\sim3$ years of MeerKAT radio telescope observations. Our timing and noise analyses enable us to measure $35$ significant parallaxes ($12$ of them for the first time) and $69$ significant proper motions. Eight pulsars near the ecliptic have an accurate proper motion in ecliptic longitude only. PSR~J0955$-$6150 has a good upper limit on its very small proper motion ($<$0.4 mas yr$^{-1}$). We used pulsars with accurate parallaxes to study the MSP velocities. This yields $39$ MSP transverse velocities, and combined with MSPs in the literature (excluding those in Globular Clusters) we analyse $66$ MSPs in total. We find that MSPs have, on average, much lower velocities than normal pulsars, with a mean transverse velocity of only $78(8)$ km s$^{-1}$ (MSPs) compared with $246(21)$ km s$^{-1}$ (normal pulsars). We found no statistical differences between the velocity distributions of isolated and binary millisecond pulsars. From Galactocentric cylindrical velocities of the MSPs, we derive 3-D velocity dispersions of $σ_ρ$, $σ_ϕ$, $σ_{z}$ = $63(11)$, $48(8)$, $19(3)$ km s$^{-1}$. We measure a mean asymmetric drift with amplitude $38(11)$ km s$^{-1}$, consistent with expectation for MSPs, given their velocity dispersions and ages. The MSP velocity distribution is consistent with binary evolution models that predict very few MSPs with velocities $>300$ km s$^{-1}$ and a mild anticorrelation of transverse velocity with orbital period.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_06963
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array parallaxes and proper motions
Shamohammadi, Mohsen
Bailes, Matthew
Flynn, Christopher
Reardon, Daniel J.
Shannon, Ryan M.
Buchner, Sarah
Cameron, Andrew D.
Camilo, Fernando
Coronigu, Alessandro
Geyer, Marisa
Kramer, Michael
Miles, Matthew
Spiewak, Renee
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
We have determined positions, proper motions, and parallaxes of $77$ millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from $\sim3$ years of MeerKAT radio telescope observations. Our timing and noise analyses enable us to measure $35$ significant parallaxes ($12$ of them for the first time) and $69$ significant proper motions. Eight pulsars near the ecliptic have an accurate proper motion in ecliptic longitude only. PSR~J0955$-$6150 has a good upper limit on its very small proper motion ($<$0.4 mas yr$^{-1}$). We used pulsars with accurate parallaxes to study the MSP velocities. This yields $39$ MSP transverse velocities, and combined with MSPs in the literature (excluding those in Globular Clusters) we analyse $66$ MSPs in total. We find that MSPs have, on average, much lower velocities than normal pulsars, with a mean transverse velocity of only $78(8)$ km s$^{-1}$ (MSPs) compared with $246(21)$ km s$^{-1}$ (normal pulsars). We found no statistical differences between the velocity distributions of isolated and binary millisecond pulsars. From Galactocentric cylindrical velocities of the MSPs, we derive 3-D velocity dispersions of $σ_ρ$, $σ_ϕ$, $σ_{z}$ = $63(11)$, $48(8)$, $19(3)$ km s$^{-1}$. We measure a mean asymmetric drift with amplitude $38(11)$ km s$^{-1}$, consistent with expectation for MSPs, given their velocity dispersions and ages. The MSP velocity distribution is consistent with binary evolution models that predict very few MSPs with velocities $>300$ km s$^{-1}$ and a mild anticorrelation of transverse velocity with orbital period.
title MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array parallaxes and proper motions
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.06963