The TRAPUM Large Magellanic Cloud pulsar survey with MeerKAT II: 12 new discoveries and timing solutions for 7 pulsars

2025/12/14 by Prayag, V., Levin, L., Geyer, M. +15
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.12765

Abstract

We report the discovery of 12 new radio pulsars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) as part of the TRAPUM (TRAnsients and PUlsars with MeerKAT) Large Survey Project, using the MeerKAT L-band receivers (856--1712 MHz). These pulsars, discovered in 18 new pointings with 2 hour integration times, bring the total number of pulsars identified by this ongoing survey to 19 (yielding a total of 44 LMC radio pulsars now known), representing an 80 per cent increase in the LMC radio pulsar population to date. These include PSR J0454-6927, the slowest extragalactic radio pulsar discovered to date, with a spin period of 2238 ms, and PSR J0452-6921, which exhibits the highest dispersion measure (DM) among extragalactic radio pulsars, at 326 pc cm^-3. The fastest spin period among the new discoveries is 245 ms, and the lowest DM is 62 pc cm^-3. We also present timing results for our first pulsar discoveries with MeerKAT and the Murriyang radio telescope, obtaining phase-connected solutions for seven pulsars in the LMC. These results indicate that the pulsars are isolated, canonical radio pulsars with characteristic ages up to 8.8 Myr

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