The TRAPUM Small Magellanic Cloud pulsar survey with MeerKAT

I. Discovery of seven new pulsars and two Pulsar Wind Nebula associations

authored by

E. Carli, L. Levin, B. W. Stappers, E. D. Barr, R. P. Breton, S. Buchner, M. Burgay, M. Geyer, M. Kramer, P. V. Padmanabh, A. Possenti, V. Venkatraman Krishnan, W. Becker, M. D. Filipović, C. Maitra, J. Behrend, D. J. Champion, W. Chen, Y. P. Men, A. Ridolfi

Abstract

The sensitivity of the MeerKAT radio interferometer is an opportunity to probe deeper into the population of rare and faint extragalactic pulsars. The TRAPUM (TRAnsients and PUlsars with MeerKAT) collaboration has conducted a radio-domain search for accelerated pulsars and transients in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). This partially targeted survey, performed at L band (856–1712 MHz) with the core array of the MeerKAT telescope in 2-h integrations, is twice as sensitive as the latest SMC radio pulsar survey. We report the discovery of seven new SMC pulsars, doubling this galaxy’s radio pulsar population and increasing the total extragalactic population by nearly a quarter. We also carried out a search for accelerated millisecond pulsars in the SMC globular cluster NGC 121 using the full array of MeerKAT. This improved the previous upper limit on pulsed radio emission from this cluster by a factor of 6. Our discoveries reveal the first radio pulsar-PWN systems in the SMC, with only one such system previously known outside our Galaxy (the ‘Crab pulsar twin’ in the Large Magellanic Cloud, PSR J0540−6919). We associate the 59 ms pulsar discovery PSR J0040−7337, now the fastest spinning radio pulsar in the SMC, with the bow-shock Pulsar Wind Nebula (PWN) of supernova remnant DEM S5. We also present a new young pulsar with a 79 ms period, PSR J0048−7317, in a PWN recently discovered in a MeerKAT radio continuum image. Using the multibeam capability of MeerKAT, we localized our pulsar discoveries, and two previous Murriyang discoveries, to a positional uncertainty of a few arcseconds.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Gravitation Physics

External Organisation(s)

University of Manchester
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR)
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
University of Cape Town
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE)
Western Sydney University

Type

Article

Journal

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Volume

531

Pages

2835-2863

No. of pages

29

ISSN

0035-8711

Publication date

04.06.2024

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Science

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2405.12029 (Access: Open)
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae1310 (Access: Open)