Precision Timing of PSR J0437–4715: An Accurate Pulsar Distance, a High Pulsar Mass, and a Limit on the Variation of Newton’s Gravitational Constant

By J. Verbiest, M. Bailes, Willem van Straten, G. Hobbs, Russell T. Edwards, R. Manchester, N. D. Ramesh Bhat, J. Sarkissian, B. Jacoby, Shrinivas R. Kulkarni. 2008

263 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Analysis of 10 years of high-precision timing data on the millisecond pulsar PSR J0437–4715 has resulted in a model-independent kinematic distance based on an apparent orbital period derivative, Ṗb , determined at the 1.5% level of precision (Dk = 157.0 ± 2.4 pc), making it one of the most accurate stellar distance estimates published to date. The discrepancy between this measurement and a previously published parallax distance estimate is attributed to errors in the DE200 solar system ephemerides. The precise measurement of Ṗb allows a limit on the variation of Newton’s gravitational constant, |Ġ/G| ⩽ 23 × 10−12 yr−1. We also constrain any anomalous acceleration along the line of sight to the pulsar to |a☉/c| ⩽ 1.5 × 10−18 s−1 at 95% confidence, and derive a pulsar mass, mpsr = 1.76 ± 0.20 M☉, one of the highest estimates so far obtained.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3812da7d71008b15d8e94f4495ed00841af0161e

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. G. Hobbs
2. R. Manchester
3. N. Wex
4. Michael Kramer
5. R. Shannon
6. J. Lattimer
7. A. Sesana
8. Bing Zhang

In Oceanography

1. G. Hobbs
2. R. Manchester
3. N. Wex
4. Michael Kramer
5. R. Shannon
6. J. Verbiest
7. Russell T. Edwards
8. Jim Cordes

Citations in the corpus

• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (2009, methodology): “These earlier data sets have been described by Verbiest et al. (2008, 2009).”
• Timing analysis for 20 millisecond pulsars in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (2015, background): “You et al. 2007; Keith et al. 2013, hereafter K13), developing pulsar-based time standards (e.g. Hobbs et al. 2012), and precise measurements of properties of the pulsars themselves (e.g. Verbiest et al. 2008, hereafter V08).”
• ASSESSING THE ROLE OF SPIN NOISE IN THE PRECISION TIMING OF MILLISECOND PULSARS (2010, background): “…be quantified, such as the relativistic effects in pulsars with massive (white dwarf) ryans@astro.cornell.edu cordes@astro.cornell.edu companions (Verbiest et al. 2008), recoil from planetarymass companions (Konacki & Wolszczan 2003), and the presently-undetected stochastic background of…”
• A two-solar-mass neutron star measured using Shapiro delay (2010, unknown): “6216(9) 3 10(221) s s(21) Reference epoch (MJD) 53,600 Dispersion measure* 34.”
• On the nature and evolution of the unique binary pulsar J1903+0327 (2010, result): “This plus the mass measurements of PSR J0437−4715 Verbiest et al. (2008) and PSR J0621+1002 Splaver et al. (2002) confirm beyond doubt the results of a previous statistical analysis of masses of several binary MSPs in globular clusters Freire et al. (2008a), which showed that MSPs have a much wider ”
• ON THE MASS DISTRIBUTION AND BIRTH MASSES OF NEUTRON STARS (2012, unknown): “Verbiest et al. 2008; 2.”
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Project (2006, methodology): “To form a ‘best’ extended data set, the Verbiest et al. (2008, 2009) data sets were combined with the best PPTA data set described in Section 4.4 and Table 7.”
• The International Pulsar Timing Array project: using pulsars as a gravitational wave detector (2009, background): “Recent observations of PSR J0437−4715 have shown that TOA precisions of ∼ 30 ns can be achieved (see §4) and over 10 yr the root-mean-square (rms) timing residuals are 200 ns (Verbiest et al. 2008).”
• Development of a Pulsar-Based Time-Scale (2012, methodology): “Hence, we have been able to remove most, but not all, of the arbitrary offsets from the timing model that were included in the Verbiest et al. (2008, 2009) analyses [details are given in Manchester et al. (2012)].”
• Varying Constants, Gravitation and Cosmology (2010, unknown): “The analysis [516] of 10 years high precision timing data on the millisecond pulsar PSR J0437-4715 has allowed to improve the constraint to |?̇?/G| < 2.”
• The International Pulsar Timing Array: First Data Release (2016, background): “As time spans become longer and instrumentation becomes more sensitive, however, instabilities and their associated low-frequency noise become clearer and start to affect subsequent pulsar analyses (Verbiest et al. 2008; Coles et al. 2011) and in particular the search for long-period GWs.”
• Timing stability of millisecond pulsars and prospects for gravitational-wave detection (2009, methodology): “A detailed analysis of these low frequency observations and ISM effects was recently presented by You et al. (2007) and an analysis of the combined data on PSR J0437 4715 was published by Verbiest et al. (2008).”
• Pulsar timing analysis in the presence of correlated noise (2011, methodology): “It should be noted that Verbiest et al. (2008) were doubtful of the formal error estimate for the WLS method and they re-estimated the error using a Monte Carlo simulation which increased the error from 0.07mas to 0.51mas.”
• EVIDENCE FOR A MASSIVE NEUTRON STAR FROM A RADIAL-VELOCITY STUDY OF THE COMPANION TO THE BLACK-WIDOW PULSAR PSR B1957+20 (2010, background): “…Initial tests, however, were suggestive but not conclusive: for pulsars with low-mass white dwarf companions, masses around 1.4–1.7M⊙ were found (van Kerkwijk et al. 1996; Jacoby et al. 2005; Bassa et al. 2006; Verbiest et al. 2008), somewhat larger than typical, but not yet very constraining.”