A 2.1 M☉ Pulsar Measured by Relativistic Orbital Decay

By D. Nice, E. M. Splaver, Ingrid Stairs, O. Loehmer, A. Jessner, Michael Kramer, Jim Cordes. 2005

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PSR J0751+1807 is a millisecond pulsar in a circular 6 hr binary system with a helium white dwarf secondary. Through high-precision pulse timing measurements with the Arecibo and Effelsberg radio telescopes, we have detected the decay of its orbit due to emission of gravitational radiation. This is the first detection of the relativistic orbital decay of a low-mass, circular binary pulsar system. The measured rate of change in orbital period, corrected for acceleration biases, is = (-6.4 ± 0.9) × 10-14. Interpreted in the context of general relativity, and combined with measurement of Shapiro delay, it implies a pulsar mass of 2.1 ± 0.2 M☉, the most massive pulsar measured. This adds to the emerging trend toward relatively high neutron star masses in neutron star-white dwarf binaries. In addition, there is some evidence for an inverse correlation between pulsar mass and orbital period in these systems. We consider alternatives to the general relativistic analysis of the data, and we use the pulsar timing data to place limits on violations of the strong equivalence principle.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6b685b154fb862559725fddb78a74aaab83526b8

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Citations in the corpus

The unusual X-ray emission of the short Swift GRB 090515: evidence for the formation of a magnetar? (2010, methodology): “For a millisecond pulsar formed by a binary merger, we can take the mass of the neutron star to be MNS = 2.1 M (Nice et al. 2005) and estimate I45 ∼ 1.5.”
A Hydrogen Atmosphere Spectral Model Applied to the Neutron Star X7 in the Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae (2005, background): “This mass is significantly larger than that of any well-measured NS (but cf. Nice et al. 2005).”
NEUTRINO SIGNATURES AND THE NEUTRINO-DRIVEN WIND IN BINARY NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2008, background): “…mass are seen, depending on the compressiblity of nuclear matter, but recent observations may suggest that neutron stars with a gravitational mass in excess of 2 M⊙ do exist (Nice et al. 2005; Freire et al. 2007), supporting a stiff EOS for nuclear matter, such as the Shen EOS we employ here.”
The relativistic pulsar-white dwarf binary PSR J1738+0333 - II. The most stringent test of scalar-tensor gravity (2012, background): “There are, however, other binary pulsars with companion WDs of similar mass like PSR J0751+1807 (Nice et al. 2005) and PSR J1909−3744 (Jacoby et al. 2005) that happen to be observed at much higher inclinations, and in no case is such a cometary tail ever observed. c© 0000 RAS, MNRAS 000, 000–000”
Short-hard gamma-ray bursts (2007, background): “A more complex evolution is found in the case of a stiff EOS (Shen EOS [Shen et al. 1998] or a polytrope with Γ = 3; Kluzniak & Lee 1998; Lee & Kluźniak 1999a; Lee 2000; Rosswog, Speith & Wynn 2004), as seems to be required by the highest measured pulsar mass M = 2.1±0.2M⊙ (Nice et al. , 2005).”
The International Pulsar Timing Array: First Data Release (2016, unknown): “…et al. (2009), (19) Camilo et al. (1996b), (20) Splaver et al. (2002), (21) Bailes et al. (1997), (22) Lundgren, Zepka & Cordes (1995), (23) Nice et al. (2005), (24) Nicastro et al. (1995), (25) Lazaridis et al. (2009), (26) Hotan, Bailes & Ord (2006), (27) Jacoby et al. (2007), (28)…”
Proto-Neutron and Neutron Stars in a Chiral SU(3) Model (2008, unknown): “For the first time an effective model including hyperon degrees of freedom could generate a neutron star with a massM 2:1 M in agreement with themostmassive one observed but still under discussion (Nice et al. 2005).”
ON THE MASS DISTRIBUTION AND BIRTH MASSES OF NEUTRON STARS (2012, unknown): “Nice et al. 2005; 3.”
A Catalog of Spectroscopically Confirmed White Dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (2006, background): “…examples ofwhite dwarfs of similarmass areMSP J1012þ5307 (vanKerkwijk et al. 1996), HD 188112 (Heber et al. 2003), and the companion to PSF J0751þ1807 (Nice et al. 2005).12 White dwarfs with masses this small are thought to be composed of helium cores rather than the canonical carbon-oxygen cores.”
Relativistic neutron star merger simulations with non-zero temperature equations of state. I. Variation of binary parameters and equation of state (2006, unknown): “Consequently, the NS radii are much smaller and the maximum NS mass allowed by the LS-EoS is marginally compatible with the NS mass of 2.1 ± 0.2M⊙ recently measured by Nice et al. (2005).”