A search for cold dust around neutron stars

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany e-mail: loehmer@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
² Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
³ Toruń Centre for Astronomy, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Gagarina 11, 87-100 Toruń, Poland

Received: 9 May 2004
Accepted: 22 June 2004

Abstract

We present observations of nine radio pulsars using the Heinrich-Hertz-Telescope at λ 0.87 mm and the IRAM 30-m telescope at λ 1.2 mm in search for a cold dust around these sources. Five of the program pulsars have been observed for the first time at the mm-wavelengths. The results are consistent with the absence of circumpulsar disks that would be massive enough () to support planet formation according to the scenarios envisioned for solar-type stars, but they do not exclude lower mass () disks for a wide range of grain sizes. These conclusions confirm the previously published results and, together with the current lack of further detections of pulsar planets, they suggest that planet formation around neutron stars is not a common phenomenon.