A new flaring black widow candidate and demographics of black widow millisecond pulsars in the galactic field

SJ Swihart, J Strader, L Chomiuk, E Aydi… - The Astrophysical …, 2022 - iopscience.iop.org
SJ Swihart, J Strader, L Chomiuk, E Aydi, KV Sokolovsky, PS Ray, M Kerr
The Astrophysical Journal, 2022iopscience.iop.org
We present the discovery of a new optical/X-ray source likely associated with the Fermi γ-ray
source 4FGL J1408. 6–2917. Its high-amplitude periodic optical variability, large
spectroscopic radial-velocity semiamplitude, evidence for optical emission lines and flaring,
and X-ray properties together imply the source is probably a new black widow millisecond
pulsar binary. We compile the properties of the 41 confirmed and suspected field black
widows, finding a median secondary mass of 0.027±0.003 M⊙. Considered jointly with the …
Abstract
We present the discovery of a new optical/X-ray source likely associated with the Fermi γ-ray source 4FGL J1408. 6–2917. Its high-amplitude periodic optical variability, large spectroscopic radial-velocity semiamplitude, evidence for optical emission lines and flaring, and X-ray properties together imply the source is probably a new black widow millisecond pulsar binary. We compile the properties of the 41 confirmed and suspected field black widows, finding a median secondary mass of 0.027±0.003 M⊙. Considered jointly with the more massive redback millisecond pulsar binaries, we find that the" spider" companion mass distribution remains strongly bimodal, with essentially zero systems having companion masses of between∼ 0.07 and 0.1 M⊙. X-ray emission from black widows is typically softer and less luminous than in redbacks, consistent with less efficient particle acceleration in the intrabinary shock in black widows, excepting a few systems that appear to have more efficient" redback-like" shocks. Together black widows and redbacks dominate the census of the fastest spinning field millisecond pulsars in binaries with known companion types, making up≳ 80% of systems with P spin< 2 ms. Similar to redbacks, the neutron star masses in black widows appear on average significantly larger than the canonical 1.4 M⊙, and many of the highest-mass neutron stars claimed to date are black widows with M NS≳ 2.1 M⊙. Both of these observations are consistent with an evolutionary picture where spider millisecond pulsars emerge from short orbital period progenitors that had a lengthy period of mass transfer initiated while the companion was on the main sequence, leading to fast spins and high masses.
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