Issue |
A&A
Volume 519, September 2010
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A13 | |
Number of page(s) | 5 | |
Section | Stellar structure and evolution | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201014025 | |
Published online | 07 September 2010 |
Search for pulsations at high radio frequencies from accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars in quiescence
M. N. Iacolina1,2 - M. Burgay2 - L. Burderi1 - A. Possenti2 - T. Di Salvo3
1 - Università di Cagliari, Dipartimento di Fisica, SP Monserrato-Sestu
km 0.7, 09042 Monserrato (CA), Italy
2 - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, Loc. Poggio dei Pini,
Strada 54, 09012 Capoterra (CA), Italy
3 - Università di Palermo, Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche ed
Astronomiche, via Archirafi 36, 90123 Palermo, Italy
Received 8 January 2010 / Accepted 31 May 2010
Abstract
Context. It is commonly believed that millisecond
radio pulsars have been spun up by transfer of matter and angular
momentum from a low-mass companion during an X-ray active mass transfer
phase. A subclass of low-mass X-ray binaries is that of the
accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars, transient systems that show
periods of X-ray quiescence during which radio emission could switch
on.
Aims. The aim of this work is to search for
millisecond pulsations from three accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars,
XTE J1751-305, XTE J1814-338, and
SAX J1808.4-3658, observed during their quiescent X-ray phases
at high radio frequencies (5 8 GHz) in order to overcome
the problem of the free-free absorption due to the matter engulfing the
system. A positive result would provide definite proof of the recycling
model, providing the direct link between the progenitors and their
evolutionary products.
Methods. The data analysis methodology has been
chosen on the basis of the precise knowledge of orbital and spin
parameters from X-ray observations. It is subdivided in three
steps: we corrected the time series for the effects of (I) the
dispersion due to interstellar medium and (II) of the orbital
motions, and finally (III) folded modulo the spin period to
increase the signal-to-noise ratio.
Results. No radio signal with spin and orbital
characteristics matching those of the X-ray sources has been found in
our search, down to very low flux density upper limits.
Conclusions. We analysed several mechanisms that
could have prevented the detection of the signal, concluding that the
low luminosity of the sources and the geometric factor are the most
likely reasons for this negative result.
Key words: pulsars: general - methods: data analysis - methods: observational - stars: neutron - X-rays: binaries
1 Introduction
It is commonly believed that accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars
(AMXPs), transient binary systems hosting a fast spinning (
1 ms)
and weakly magnetised (
Gauss) neutron star
(NS), are the progenitors of the radio millisecond pulsars (MSPs),
as argued by the recycling model (Alpar et al. 1982; Bhattacharya &
van den Heuvel 1991). This model asserts that the NS in these
systems is spun up by the transfer of matter and angular momentum from
its low-mass (M
1
)
companion star via the formation of an accretion disk. When this
process ends, the NS switches on as a radio MSP.
A basic requirement for the switching on of the radio emission is that the space surrounding the NS has to be free of matter, a condition that can be fulfilled during the quiescence phase of AMXPs. For this reason this phase constitutes the most promising one to investigate for confirming of the recycling model. The aim of this work is, in fact, to search for radio millisecond pulsations from a sample of AMXPs in their quiescence phase: a positive result would unambiguously establish that AMXPs are the progenitors of at least some of the radio MSPs.
In the past decade, from 1998 April, the date of the discovery of the first AMXP, SAX J1808.4-3658 (Wijnands & van der Klis 1998), several attempts have been made to obtain this confirmation (e.g. Burgay et al. 2003), but, despite the eleven additional systems discovered since (e.g. Galloway et al. 2002; Casella et al. 2008), we have not obtained a positive result yet.
A possible explanation of some of these failures has been
given by Burderi et al. (2001),
asserting that detection of radio pulsations from AMXPs could be
hampered by matter surrounding the system. In fact, during the
so-called radio-ejection phase,
the pressure of the rotating magneto-dipole could prevent the
infalling matter from the companion of the NS in the binary system from
reaching the NS Roche lobe, forcing it to leave the system from the
Lagrangian point L1.
Once this happens, such matter, which is still carrying the angular
momentum, will rotate around the two stars embedding the system. Even
if the pulsar radio emission was switched on and the system in X-ray
quiescence, it could be absorbed by a free-free mechanism.
Since the optical depth for the free-free absorption,
,
depends on the square inverse of the frequency, observations at higher
frequencies could encompass this problem.
With this scenario in mind we have undertaken a campaign of
observation at high radio frequencies (see Table 1) for four
AMXPs, XTE J0929-314, XTE J1751-305,
XTE J1814-338, and SAX J1808.4-3658, in their
quiescence phase. Results for XTE J0929-314 were presented in Iacolina et al. (2009).
Here we used the same equation to estimate
for the other three sources,
and we obtained the values listed in
Table 1.
The parameters are: for the four sources,
,
X = 0.7, Y = 0.3,
,
;
for XTE J1814-338,
,
,
(Markwardt & Swank 2003); for
XTE J1751-305,
,
,
(Markwardt et al. 2002);
for XTE J0929-314,
,
,
(Galloway et al. 2002); and
for SAX J1808.4-3658,
(which is the average mass transfer rate for the 1998, 2000, and 2002
outbursts, see Papitto et al.
2005),
,
.
In this table, the values of
obtained at 1.4 GHz
(the typical frequency used to
observe pulsar) are much higher than unity, so the radiation
would be totally absorbed, while for frequencies higher than
5 GHz we obtained values smaller or close to unity for all the
sources and, reasonably assuming that the matter enclosing the system
is clumpy (i.e. there are favourable directions where the
optical depth is lower than the average values of the table), we have a
higher probability of detecting the radio signal.
Table 1: Optical depth at various radio frequencies, for the four sources.
The unknown inclination of the systems negligibly affects the estimate of the optical depth, considering that, while the estimated companion mass only slightly increases for a decrease in the inclination, the amount of matter along the line of sight significantly decreases, because the disk is in the orbital plane.
2 The sources, the observations, and the data analysis method
Two series of radio observations were taken on 2003 December 20-23 for XTE J1751-305 and XTE J1814-338, and on 2002 August 5-7 for SAX J1808.4-3658, using the Parkes 64 m radio telescope. Observation parameters are listed in Table 3. The data analysis methodology was chosen on the basis of the precise knowledge of the spin and orbital parameters from X-ray observation. It is the same as was adopted for the source XTE J0929-314 presented by Iacolina et al. (2009), where it is described in detail.
The original ephemerides were published by Markwardt et al. (2002) for XTE J1751-305, by Markwardt & Swank (2003) for XTE J1814-338 and by Chakrabarty & Morgan (1998) for SAX J1808.4-3658, and subsequently refined by Papitto et al. (2007,2008) for XTE J1751-305 and XTE J1814-338, and by Hartman et al. (2009) (but also by Burderi et al. 2009; Di Salvo et al. 2008; and Hartman et al. 2008) for SAX J1808.4-3658. Table 3 reports the most updated ephemerides used in this work.
The first part of the data analysis was to correct the time
series for the dispersion effects of the ISM; the steps, the ranges of
DMs used, and the values of the local DMs for the three sources are
indicated in Table 3
(for SAX J1808.4-3658, we considered the highest mass
transfer rate assumed in quiescence,
/y, proposed
by Di Salvo et al. 2008).
We then barycentred the data series to correct for the orbital effects
considering the propagation of the uncertainties in the ephemerides
derived from X-ray observations over the time range between X-ray and
radio observations. This time range corresponds to
20 000 orbits
for XTE J1751-305 and
1000 orbits for XTE J1814-338.
For SAX J1808.4-3658, the adopted X-ray ephemerides are
derived from the analysis of the secular evolution reported by Hartman et al. (2009, see
Table 3#,
which refers to the time of
100 orbits
after the radio observations.
For XTE J1751-305, only the propagation of the orbital period error (90% confidence level) affected the time series losing the possibility of detecting the signal: i.e. producing a broadening of the pulse of 0.9 in pulsar phase. To reduce this broadening to at most 0.1 in pulsar phase, one has to search for the signal at 18 trial values of the orbital period, 9 above and 9 below the nominal value, covering the uncertainty range.
For XTE J1814-338 and SAX J1808.4-3658, the
uncertainty in all the parameters within the 90% confidence
level for XTE J1814-338 and 1 level for
SAX J1808.4-3658 does not affect the detectability of the
pulsation. We then corrected the data series by only using the nominal
values of the parameters.
The last step in this search is to fold the time series using the spin parameters reported in Table 3. The spin period range explored has to be chosen by considering the nominal value of the spin period at the epoch of the radio observations, as explained by Iacolina et al. (2009).
For SAX J1808.4-3658, which is the only AMXP that
showed more than one outburst, we considered the value of the spin
period at the epoch of the X-ray observations, ,
derived by Hartman et al.
(2009) and the value of its derivative,
,
measured during the outburst closest to the radio observations time,
reported by Burderi et al.
(2006) and listed in Table 3, which
turns out to be higher than what is derived by the analysis of the
secular evolution obtained by Hartman
et al. (2009) and constitutes an upper limit in the
search (see below). The folding trial values are indicated in
Table 3.
To check the plausibility of the adopted spin period interval,
for XTE J1814-338, we derived the spin period
derivative,
,
through an estimate of the surface magnetic field, considering the
magnetic torque acting on the neutron star, as discussed by Iacolina et al. (2009).
The value obtained is
10-20, which is lower than
and then safely contained in
our interval of spin period trial values.
For SAX J1808.4-3658, Burderi
et al. (2006) calculated a value of the magnetic
field equal to
108 Gauss. The spin period derivative,
therefore, results
10-20, which is once again
.
![]() |
Figure 1: Upper panel: plot with the highest S/N for XTE J1751-305. Lower panel: S/N in function of spin frequency and DM. See the text for further explanations. |
Open with DEXTER |
For XTE J1751-305 Wijnands
et al. (2005) derived an estimate of the magnetic
field during its quiescence phase constrained to be
<(2.5-6)
108 G, using the value reported in
Table 3
for the distance. The spin period derivative resulted to be
<(2.7-15)
10-20 which is lower than
,
consequently, the adopted interval of spin periods is again
safely large.
3 Results
At the end of the three steps of analysis we produced 67 000 folded
profiles for XTE J1751-305,
330 for XTE J1814-338, and
200 for
SAX J1808.4-3658, reporting the results from the folding of
the dedispersed, deorbited, and barycentred time series. The best ones
were displayed for visual inspection to search for possible pulsar
suspects.
For XTE J1751-305, the highest S/N
obtained was 6.78 corresponding to a peak at 4 significance,
the corresponding plot is shown in Fig. 1 (upper
panel), where the grayscale on the left shows the signal in the
255 subintegrations in which the whole observation was
split vs. the spin phase, while the parameters used for the
folding are indicated on the right. The diagram at the bottom displays
about 4 phases of the integrated pulse profile. The parameters
for the pulsar suspect are DM = 735.41 pc cm-3,
=
2545.34361 s,
=
435.317974 Hz. This peak has
a 40% probability of not being randomly generated
over the 40 755 trial foldings of the dataset
corresponding to one of the two observations
at 8.5 GHz. Analysing the behaviour of the S/N
as a function of the spin frequency and DM trial values, a decreasing
trend from a peak at S/N = 6.78
is found. Since this peak was at the limit of our search interval in
spin frequency, we considered it appropriate to investigate for
11 more steps in the spin frequency, discovering,
in this way, the whole trend: the maximum, which corresponded
to the same S/N,
is defined in all the directions. The result is displayed in
Fig. 1
(lower panel), where in the y-axis we have the spin
frequency (10 steps above and 11 below the nominal value,
corresponding to 0) and in the x-axis,
the DM (60 steps corresponding to the interval
between 485.22 and 932.54 pc cm-3)
plotted for an orbital period
s.
A clear maximum is well defined, hence supporting the
plausibility of the suspect.
This result is not confirmed in the other observation (at the same frequency) elaborated with the same parameters, but this could be due to the clumpiness of the matter around the system. This suspect may thus deserve additional investigation in the future.
The highest S/Ns
reached for XTE J1814-338 and for SAX J1808.4-3658
were 4.67 and 4.41, corresponding to a peak at 2.6
and 2.2
significance,
respectively, with a probability of being real radio signals and not
produced by noise of 18% and 20% over
the 186 and 57 trial foldings of their single
dataset, respectively. Unfortunately, visual inspection of these two
results and others at lower S/Ns
did not provide any evidence of the pulsed signal, and no other
investigations have shown the positive signs in the trend of the S/N
obtained for XTE J1751-305. Finally, the observations
at the other frequency, folded with the same parameters, did not
displayed any suitable shape for the signal. For these two
sources, we can thus conclude that no pulsed radio signal has been
detected at their spin period in our observations.
3.1 Upper limit on the flux density
Considering the parameters indicated in Table 3 and a duty
cycle,
,
of 15%, we estimated the upper limit on the flux density for
the three observed sources at the nominal DM with the
Eq. (9) in Iacolina
et al. (2009). Including results for
XTE J0929-314 (Iacolina
et al. 2009), we obtained the values indicated in
Table 2.
Table 2: Flux density upper limits for the four sources at the analysed frequencies.
4 Discussion
In this section we discuss the results of our findings, including results for XTE J0929-314 presented in Iacolina et al. (2009). A part for the result obtained for the 8.5 GHz observation of XTE J1751-305, deserving additional investigation, no radio pulsed emission has been found above the reported upper limits in the data analysed. Assuming that the radio emission was switched on during the observations of the three sources, we investigated the possible reasons that prevented detecting of the radio signals.
Considering Eq. (11) in Iacolina
et al. (2009), we estimated the probability that the
beams of the sources do not intersect our line of sight. Assuming a
typical duty cycle of 15% for each source,
the probability that the beams of all the sources
(including XTE J0929-314) are missing our line of
sight is 19%.
In order to exclude this geometric bias we would have to
analyse the whole known sample of twelve AMXPs, and the probability of
missing all the beams of the whole sample will drop to
about 0.1%.
![]() |
Figure 2: Pseudoluminosity distribution of a sample of 46 MSPs in the galactic field. The vertical lines indicate the upper limits related to the four analysed sources. |
Open with DEXTER |
Table 3: Parameters for the source, the observation and data analyses for XTE J1814-338, XTE J1751-305 and SAX J1808.4-3658.
The second possible reason that might have prevented the
detection of a radio signal could be the low luminosity of the sources.
As the true luminosity of pulsars cannot be measured because
of the unknown beaming fraction, a ``pseudo luminosity'', L, is defined
as the observed flux density, S, multiplied
by the square of the pulsar distance, d (Taylor & Manchester 1977): L=S d2.
In Fig. 2
the logarithmic distribution of the pseudoluminosity at
1.4 GHz of the sample of 46 known galactic field MSPs
is shown. The vertical lines
indicate the lower values of the upper limits on L
of XTE J1751-305, XTE J1814-338,
SAX J1808.4-3658, and XTE J0929-314 (for the
observations at 8.5 GHz and 5 GHz), scaled at
1.4 GHz, considering a dependence on the frequency
,
with an index
,
and for the distances indicated in Table 3.
These limits determine the probability that the true pseudo
luminosity of each source is too faint for detection in our search. We
calculated that this probability is about 90% for
XTE J1814-338 and XTE J1751-305 and 80% for
SAX J1808.4-3658 and for XTE J0929-314. The combined
probability of the non detection due to the luminosity threshold of our
survey is
50%.
This percentage is not negligible and can be reduced by a deeper search
and/or by a larger sample.
Expanding the sample to all the known AMXPs, with a
probability equal to about 80% for each one, the combined
probability would be 10%,
not enough for a safe detection. For a combined probability less than
0.1%, we
also have to perform a deeper search. The upper limit in
pseudo-luminosity for each source having such a probability is
mJy kpc2.
The limit in flux for an average distance of 7 kpc becomes
mJy
at 1.4 GHz which, scaled at 4.7 GHz
(as, for example, for the observation of
SAX J1808.4-3658), becomes
mJy.
Such a limit can be reached by performing observations using telescopes
with a larger bandwidth and higher instantaneous sensitivity.
In fact, a 4.7 GHz observation of
SAX J1808.4-3658, performed using a 2 GHz
bandwidth and 2.01 K Jy-1 gain
obtainable at the Green Bank radio telescope (GBT), would have reached
a flux density limit of
0.003 mJy.
5 Conclusions
We performed a search for millisecond pulsations in three AMXPs, XTE J1814-338, XTE J1751-305, and SAX J1808.4-3658, in their quiescence phases at high radio frequencies. Discussion was done by including the previous results obtained by Iacolina et al. (2009) for XTE J0929-314. Except for the case of XTE J1751-305, for which further investigations are needed, no pulsations with the expected periodicity have been detected in the analysed data. The flux density upper limits determined by our search (including XTE J0929-314) are indicated in Table 2.
Possible mechanisms that might have hampered the observation
of the pulsed signal could concern the luminosity of the four analysed
sources, lower than our limit of detection, resulting in a 50% combined
probability of non detection, or the anisotropic nature of the
pulsar emission, with a probability of
19% that the beam of all the four sources does
not intersect our line of sight.
This work is supported by the Italian Space Agency, ASI-INAF I/088/06/0 contract for High Energy Astrophysics, and by the RAS (Regione Autonoma della Sardegna), PO-FSE 2007-13, L.R. 7/2007.
References
- Alpar, M. A., Cheng, A. F., Ruderman, M. A., & Shaham, J. 1982, Nature, 300, 728 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Bhattacharya, D., & van den Heuvel, E. P. J. 1991, Phys. Rep., 203, 1 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Burderi, L., Possenti, A., D'Antona, F., et al. 2001, ApJ, 560, L71 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Burderi, L., Di Salvo, T., Menna, M. T., Riggio, A., & Papitto, A. 2006, ApJ, 653, L133 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Burderi, L., Riggio, A., di Salvo, T., et al. 2009, A&A, 496, L17 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [EDP Sciences] [Google Scholar]
- Burgay, M., Burderi, L., Possenti, A., et al. 2003, ApJ, 589, 902 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Casella, P., Altamirano, D., Patruno, A., Wijnands, R., & van der Klis, M. 2008, ApJ, 674, L41 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Chakrabarty, D., & Morgan, E. H. 1998, Nature, 394, 346 [Google Scholar]
- Di Salvo, T., Burderi, L., Riggio, A., Papitto, A., & Menna, M. T. 2008, MNRAS, 389, 1851 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Galloway, D. K., Chakrabarty, D., Morgan, E. H., & Remillard, R. A. 2002, ApJ, 576, L137 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Hartman, J. M., Patruno, A., Chakrabarty, D., et al. 2008, ApJ, 675, 1468 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Hartman, J. M., Patruno, A., Chakrabarty, D., et al. 2009, ApJ, 702, 1673 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Iacolina, M. N., Burgay, M., Burderi, L., Possenti, A., & di Salvo, T. 2009, A&A, 497, 445 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [EDP Sciences] [Google Scholar]
- Manchester, R. N., Hobbs, G. B., Teoh, A., & Hobbs, M. 2005, VizieR Online Data Catalog, 7245, 0 [Google Scholar]
- Markwardt, C. B., & Swank, J. H. 2003, IAU Circ., 8144, 1 [NASA ADS] [Google Scholar]
- Markwardt, C. B., Swank, J. H., Strohmayer, T. E., Zand, J. J. M. I., & Marshall, F. E. 2002, ApJ, 575, L21 [Google Scholar]
- Papitto, A., Menna, M. T., Burderi, L., et al. 2005, ApJ, 621, L113 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Papitto, A., di Salvo, T., Burderi, L., et al. 2007, MNRAS, 375, 971 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Papitto, A., Menna, M. T., Burderi, L., di Salvo, T., & Riggio, A. 2008, MNRAS, 383, 411 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Taylor, J. H., & Manchester, R. N. 1977, ApJ, 215, 885 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Wijnands, R., & van der Klis, M. 1998, Nature, 394, 344 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Wijnands, R., Homan, J., Heinke, C. O., Miller, J. M., & Lewin, W. H. G. 2005, ApJ, 619, 492 [NASA ADS] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
Footnotes
- ... shown
- Data taken from the ATNF pulsar catalogue - http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/pulsar/psrcat/; Manchester et al. (2005).
All Tables
Table 1: Optical depth at various radio frequencies, for the four sources.
Table 2: Flux density upper limits for the four sources at the analysed frequencies.
Table 3: Parameters for the source, the observation and data analyses for XTE J1814-338, XTE J1751-305 and SAX J1808.4-3658.
All Figures
![]() |
Figure 1: Upper panel: plot with the highest S/N for XTE J1751-305. Lower panel: S/N in function of spin frequency and DM. See the text for further explanations. |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 2: Pseudoluminosity distribution of a sample of 46 MSPs in the galactic field. The vertical lines indicate the upper limits related to the four analysed sources. |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
Copyright ESO 2010
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.