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Binary Eclipsing Millisecond Pulsars: A Decade of Timing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

David J. Nice
Affiliation:
Physics Department, Princeton University, Box 708, Princeton, NJ 08544USA
Zaven Arzoumanian
Affiliation:
NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Mailstop 662.0, Greenbelt, MD 20771USA
Stephen E. Thorsett
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064USA

Abstract

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We present results of long-term timing of eclipsing binaries PSR B1744–24A and PSR B1957+20 at Arecibo, the VLA, and Green Bank. Both pulsars exhibit irregularities in pulsar rotation and orbital motion. Increases and decreases of the orbital period of PSR B1957+20 are of order ΔPb/Pb ∼ 10−7, varying on a time scale of a few years. Over a decade of observations, the orbital period of PSR B1744–24A has only decreased, with time scale |Pb/b| ∼ 200Myr. When the effects of orbital motion are removed from the timing data, long-term trends remain in the pulse phase residuals, with amplitudes of order 30 and 500 μs, respectively, for B1957+20 and B1744–24A. Such large “timing noise” is not seen in other spun-up pulsars (isolated or binary), leading us to conclude that it is a consequence of mass flow in the system. Possible causes include variations in the rotation of the pulsars and movement of the binary systems along the line of sight (perhaps due to gravitational interactions with outflowing matter).

Type
Part 2. Timing, General Relativity and Astrometry
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2000

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