Kavli Affiliate: Peter F. Michelson
| First 5 Authors: Pei Wang, Di Li, Colin J. Clark, Pablo Saz Parkinson, Xian Hou
| Summary:
High sensitivity radio searches of unassociated $gamma$-ray sources have
proven to be an effective way of finding new pulsars. Using the
Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) during its
commissioning phase, we have carried out a number of targeted deep searches of
textit{Fermi} Large Area Telescope (LAT) $gamma$-ray sources. On Feb.
27$^{th}$, 2018 we discovered an isolated millisecond pulsar (MSP), PSR
J0318+0253, coincident with the unassociated $gamma$-ray source 3FGL
J0318.1+0252. PSR J0318+0253 has a spin period of $5.19$ milliseconds, a
dispersion measure (DM) of $26$ pc cm$^{-3}$ corresponding to a DM distance of
about $1.3$ kpc, and a period-averaged flux density of $sim$11 $pm$ 2 $mu$Jy
at L-band (1.05-1.45 GHz). Among all high energy MSPs, PSR J0318+0253 is the
faintest ever detected in radio bands, by a factor of at least $sim$4 in terms
of L-band fluxes. With the aid of the radio ephemeris, an analysis of 9.6 years
of textit{Fermi}-LAT data revealed that PSR J0318+0253 also displays strong
$gamma$-ray pulsations. Follow-up observations carried out by both Arecibo and
FAST suggest a likely spectral turn-over around 350 MHz. This is the first
result from the collaboration between FAST and the textit{Fermi}-LAT teams as
well as the first confirmed new MSP discovery by FAST, raising hopes for the
detection of many more MSPs. Such discoveries will make a significant
contribution to our understanding of the neutron star zoo while potentially
contributing to the future detection of gravitational waves, via pulsar timing
array (PTA) experiments.
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