Refined Mass and Geometric Measurements of the High-mass PSR J0740+6620

By E. Fonseca, H. Cromartie, T. Pennucci, P. Ray, A. Kirichenko, S. Ransom, P. Demorest, Ingrid Stairs, Z. Arzoumanian, L. Guillemot and 35 more. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2021

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We report results from continued timing observations of PSR J0740+6620, a high-mass, 2.8 ms radio pulsar in orbit with a likely ultracool white dwarf companion. Our data set consists of combined pulse arrival-time measurements made with the 100 m Green Bank Telescope and the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment telescope. We explore the significance of timing-based phenomena arising from general relativistic dynamics and variations in pulse dispersion. When using various statistical methods, we find that combining ∼1.5 yr of additional, high-cadence timing data with previous measurements confirms and improves on previous estimates of relativistic effects within the PSR J0740+6620 system, with the pulsar mass mp=2.08−0.07+0.07M⊙ (68.3% credibility) determined by the relativistic Shapiro time delay. For the first time, we measure secular variation in the orbital period and argue that this effect arises from apparent acceleration due to significant transverse motion. After incorporating contributions from Galactic differential rotation and off-plane acceleration in the Galactic potential, we obtain a model-dependent distance of d=1.14−0.15+0.17 kpc (68.3% credibility). This improved distance confirms the ultracool nature of the white dwarf companion determined from recent optical observations. We discuss the prospects for future observations with next-generation facilities, which will likely improve the precision on m p for J0740+6620 by an order of magnitude within the next few years.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Ocean Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/76e114d52bd67f3efa225c00399f1ee3d438c643

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Citations in the corpus

PSR J0952−0607: The Fastest and Heaviest Known Galactic Neutron Star (2022, neutral): “Two systems have best-estimate masses barely exceeding 2.0Me: J0348 +0432 at 2.01± 0.04Me (Antoniadis et al. 2013) and PSR J0740+6620 at 2.08± 0.07Me (Fonseca et al. 2021), both 1σ uncertainties.”
An Updated Mass–Radius Analysis of the 2017–2018 NICER Data Set of PSR J0030+0451 (2023, background): “The fact that PSR J0030 + 0451 has an inferred radius similar to that inferred for the ∼ 2.1 M e pulsar PSR J0740 + 6620 ( Fonseca et al. 2021; Miller et al. 2021; Riley et al. 2021; Salmi et al. 2022 ) , despite the much lower inferred mass, is particularly notable ( Raaijmakers et al. 2021 ) .”
Observation of Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 2.5–4.5 M ⊙ Compact Object and a Neutron Star (2024, methodology): “Both methods incorporate consistency with the observed heavy pulsars PSR J0740+6620 (Fonseca et al. 2021) and PSR J0348+0432 (Antoniadis et al. 2013) as priors on the EoS and enforce thermodynamic stability and causality.”
The Radius of the High-mass Pulsar PSR J0740+6620 with 3.6 yr of NICER Data (2024, methodology): “07 M ⊙ from Fonseca et al. 2021), and the NS radius was inferred to be, using both NICER and XMM-Newton data, 12 .”
On the Sound Speed in Neutron Stars (2022, methodology): “We impose the mass measurements of J0348+0432 (Antoniadis et al. 2013; M= 2.01± 0.04Me) and of J0740+6620 (Cromartie et al. 2019; Fonseca et al. 2021; M= 2.08± 0.07Me) by rejecting EOSs that have a maximum mass M M2.”