A&A 367, 931-932 (2001)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20010048
Research Note
M. L. A. Kouwenhoven - M. C. van den Berg
Astronomical Institute, PO Box 80000, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands
Received 7 September 2000 / Accepted 23 October 2000
Abstract
We have observed the star GSC
01060-01374 to investigate whether it is
in a binary with PSR B1929+10. Its spectral type is K4-6 and its
luminosity class is III or II, therefore its distance is 2.4 kpc or
higher. Since the dispersion measure distance of PSR B1929+10 is 0.17 kpc,
we rule out the possibility that these two stars are associated
in a binary. This poses further constraints on the lower limit of kick
velocities in supernova explosions.
Key words: stars: individual: GSC 01060-01374 - stars: neutron - pulsars: individual: PSR B1929+10
Portegies Zwart et al. (1997) have compared the positions of
pulsars from the pulsar catalog (Taylor et al. 1993, 1995) with the
positions of stars in the Guide Star Catalog (GSC, Lasker et al. 1990;
Jenker et al. 1990). They noticed that the position of the pulsar
PSR B1929+10 and that of the star GSC 01060-01374 differ by only
4.87
,
which corresponds to a separation of 0.004 pc at the distance
of the pulsar. PSR B1929+10 is a nearby radio pulsar with a period of
0.227 s and a spin-down age of 3 106 yr (Large et al. 1968). Its
dispersion measure is only
cm-3 pc, which leads to
a distance estimate of 0.17 kpc. Distances obtained from dispersion
measures are believed to be accurate to
25% (Taylor & Cordes 1993).
This result is in agreement with the parallax distance of
kpc
found by Campbell (1995). However, Backer & Sramek (1982)
found a slightly higher lower limit to the parallax distance of 0.25 kpc.
Portegies Zwart et al. (1997) showed that one known radio pulsar is expected to be in a wide binary with a star in the GSC, if kicks in supernova explosions exist and have a velocity of about 10 km s-1. For higher kick velocities no correlation between stars from the pulsar catalog and the GSC is expected, since these kicks will then dissociate all wide binaries. Therefore, if PSR B1929+10 is indeed in a binary, small kick velocities must exist and the kick velocity distribution must have a low-velocity tail. In this note we investigate the possible binary relation between PSR B1929+10 and GSC 01060-01374.
We have taken a low-resolution spectrum (
)
of the star
GSC 01060-01374 on July 31, 1999 with the ISIS dual-beam spectrograph
mounted on the 4.2 m William Herschel Telesope on La Palma.
We observed the star for 180 s in both the blue (2743-6260 Å) and
red (5778-8727 Å) arm of ISIS with the spectrograph
slit width set to 4
.
The flux standard BD+28 4211 was observed
for 30 s in both arms, with the slit widened to 8
.
The seeing during these
observations was between 0
8 and 1
1.
After removal of the bias signal, extraction of the spectrum and flat-fielding, the spectrum was converted to an absolute flux scale. For that purpose we used the observation of the flux standard, its standard spectrum (Massey et al. 1988) and an atmospheric extinction curve for La Palma (King 1985). Spectra of CuNe-lamps were used to do the wavelength calibration. The spectrum is displayed in Fig. 1. The flux calibration between 5700 and 5850 Å was not reliable, as the response of the CCDs in the dispersion direction is highly variable in that region. For more details about the observations and data reduction we refer to van den Berg & Verbunt (in preparation).
We derive that the
luminosity class of GSC 01060-01374 is I, II or III
from the classification criteria for late K to M
stars in Figs. 6d and 7d in Kirkpatrick et al. (1991)
and in particular from the strength of the Ca II
line at 8542 Å relative to the nearby continuum.
We find a ratio D (see Kirkpatrick et al. 1991) of
and ratio
D/ratio C of
.
We
can not distinguish between luminosity classes I, II and III,
since the number of comparison stars is limited.
![]() |
Figure 1: Observed spectrum of the star GSC 01060-01374 and scaled and shifted spectra of standard K4III and K7III stars from Silva & Cornell (1992). The difference in the slope between the spectra of our star and that of the standard stars is probably due to reddening |
Open with DEXTER |
The
spectral type K4-6 is derived from the index
as defined in Malyuto
& Schmidt-Kaler (1997) that includes features between 4215-4360 Å and 5125-5290 Å. We find an index
.
The indices I2 and I3, also taken from
Malyuto & Schmidt-Kaler, suggest a luminosity class III-I as well. We
conclude that GSC 01060-01374 is a K(4-6)III-I star.
Transmission curves of U, B and V filters are used to obtain U, B and V
magnitudes from the flux calibrated spectra. We find
,
and
.
The errors are estimated by comparing
the B and V magnitudes thus obtained for the flux standard with their
tabulated values. The observed apparent V magnitude is in accordance
with the value of
from the GSC.
The observed colours are in agreement with our spectral classification.
If our
star has luminosity class III the difference in the observed and
expected B-V is
.
From this we derive that the
reddening in V is:
.
If our star has luminosity
class II or I,
or
,
respectively.
Since the absolute V magnitude MV of a class III, II and I K5 star
are -0.2, -2.3 and -5.8, respectively, we can now derive the distance D to
the star using the relation:
![]() |
(1) |
Since the distance to the pulsar is only 0.17 kpc, we exclude the possibility of a binary association between PSR B1929+10 and GSC 01060-01374, even if we take the large uncertainties of the dispersion-distance relation for nearby pulsars into account. We find no evidence for a low velocity tail in the kick velocity distribution and the average kick velocity should be at least 10 km s-1(Portegies Zwart et al. 1997).
Acknowledgements
MK is supported by The Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), a national association of astronomy departments at the Universities of Amsterdam, Groningen, Leiden and Utrecht. MvdB is supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).