Upgraded GMRT survey for pulsars in globular clusters

I. Discovery of a millisecond binary pulsar in NGC 6652

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
e-mail: tgautam@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
² INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, Via della Scienza 5, 09047 Selargius (CA), Italy
³ NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
⁴ National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune, 411007 Maharashtra, India
⁵ National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Rd., Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
⁶ Department of Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson building, Keble road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK
⁷ Magdalen College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 4AU, UK
⁸ George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, resident at US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375, USA

Received: 7 January 2022
Accepted: 27 May 2022

Abstract

Context. Globular clusters (GCs) contain a unique pulsar population, with many exotic systems that can form only in their dense stellar environments. Such systems are potentially very interesting for new tests of gravity theories and neutron-star mass measurements.

Aims. The leap in sensitivity of the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) in India, especially at low radio frequencies (< 1 GHz), motivated a new search for radio pulsars in a group of eight southern GCs. We aim to image these clusters in order to have independent measurements of the radio fluxes of known pulsars and the identification of bright radio sources that could be pulsars missed by pulsation search pipelines due to their inherent limitations.

Methods. The observations were conducted at 650 MHz (Band 4 receivers) on Terzan 5, NGC 6441, NGC 6440, and NGC 6544, and at 400 MHz (Band 3 receivers) on NGC 6652, NGC 6539, NGC 1851, and M 30. Segmented acceleration and jerk searches were performed on the data. Simultaneously, we obtained interferometric data on these clusters, which were later converted into radio images.

Results. We discovered PSR J1835−3259B, a 1.83-ms pulsar in NGC 6652; this is in a near-circular wide orbit of 28.7-h with an unidentified low-mass (∼0.2 M_⊙) companion, likely a helium white dwarf. We derived a ten-year timing solution for this system. We also present measurements of scattering, flux densities, and spectral indices for some of the previously known pulsars in these GCs.

Conclusions. A significant fraction of the pulsars in these clusters have steep spectral indices. Additionally, we detected eight radio point sources not associated with any known pulsar positions in the radio images. There are four newly identified sources, three in NGC 6652 and one in NGC 6539, as well as one previously identified source in NGC 1851, NGC 6440, NGC 6544, and Terzan 5. Surprisingly, our images show that our newly discovered pulsar, PSR J1835−3259B, is the brightest pulsar in all GCs we have imaged; like other pulsars with broad profiles (Terzan 5 C and O), its flux density in the radio images is much larger than in its pulsations. This indicates that their pulsed emission is only a fraction of their total emission. The detection of radio sources outside the core radii but well within the tidal radii of these clusters show that future GC surveys should complement the search analysis by using the imaging capability of interferometers, and preferentially synthesise large number of search beams in order to obtain a larger field of view.