Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) and by analyzing archival Arecibo Observatory data, astronomers have investigated a distant pulsar designated PSR B1310+18A. Results of the new study, published on the arXiv preprint server, deliver important insights into the properties of this object.
Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars emitting a beam of electromagnetic radiation. They are usually detected in the form of short bursts of radio emission. However, some of them are also observed via optical, X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes.
Discovered in 1989 by the Arecibo Observatory, PSR B1310+18A, (M53A for short) is a pulsar in an old globular cluster (GC) NGC 5024 (also known as M53) located some 60,000 light years away. The pulsar has a spin period of 33.16 milliseconds and a dispersion measure of approximately 24.93 pc/cm3.
Previous observations of M53A have found that it is a binary system with an orbital period of 256 days and low orbital eccentricity. The minimum mass of the companion object is assumed to be 0.3 solar masses. However, to date, no timing solution for this pulsar has ever been published.
That is why a team of astronomers led by Yujie Lian of the Beijing Normal University in China decided to investigate this pulsar.
“Thanks to the high sensitivity of Arecibo and FAST, we have obtained a timing solution for M53A with a 35-year baseline from 1989.03 to 2024.05, and an optical identification in HST [Hubble Space Telescope] data, which provides a consistent understanding of this system,” the researchers explained.
Lian’s team managed to determine the precise position and proper motion of M53A. They found that the pulsar lies approximately 0.52 arcminutes from the center of the cluster. The proper motion of M53A was measured to be −0.36 and −0.62 mas/year in right ascension and declination, respectively.
The study found that M53A has a relatively large spin-period derivative that cannot be explained by acceleration in the cluster. The astronomers assume that the intrinsic spin-down of the pulsar dominates the spin-period derivative. The characteristic age of the pulsar was estimated to be between 700 and 850 million years, while the strength of its magnetic field was measured to be at a relatively low level of 4.5-5 billion Gauss.
The collected data also allowed the researchers to gain more insights into the nature of the pulsar‘s companion. The results suggest that this object is a helium white dwarf with a mass of about 0.39 solar masses. The white dwarf has an effective temperature of about 18,000 K and its cooling age was estimated to be 140 million years. Based on these findings, the authors of the paper concluded that the M53A system formed recently in the history of the globular cluster NGC 5024.
More information:
Yujie Lian et al, Thirty-five years of timing of M53A with Arecibo and FAST, arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2502.02042
Journal information:
arXiv
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Astronomers uncover details of pulsar M53A’s spin and motion (2025, February 12)
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