2023/12/01 by Zic, Andrew, Wang, Ziteng, Lenc, Emil +9 · 2 citations
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2312.00261
Large widefield surveys make possible the serendipitous discovery of rare sub-classes of pulsars. One such class are "spider"-type pulsar binaries, comprised of a pulsar in a compact orbit with a low-mass (sub)stellar companion. In a search for circularly-polarized radio sources in ASKAP Pilot Survey observations, we discovered highly variable and circularly polarized emission from a radio source within the error region of the γ-ray source 4FGL~J1646.5-4406. The variability is consistent with the eclipse of a compact, steep-spectrum source behind ablated material from a companion in a ∼ 5.3 h binary orbit. Based on the eclipse properties and spatial coincidence with 4FGL J1646.5-4406, we argue that the source is likely a recycled pulsar in a "redback" binary system. Using properties of the eclipses from ASKAP and Murchison Widefield Array observations, we provide broad constraints on the properties of the eclipse medium. We identified a potential optical/infra-red counterpart in archival data consistent with a variable low-mass star. Using the Parkes Radio Telescope "Murriyang" and MeerKAT, we searched extensively for radio pulsations but yielded no viable detections of pulsed emission. We suggest that the non-detection of pulses is due to scattering in the intra-binary material, but scattering from the ISM can also plausibly explain the pulse non-detections if the interstellar dispersion measure exceeds ∼600 pc cm-3. Orbital constraints derived from optical observations of the counterpart would be highly valuable for future γ-ray pulsation searches, which may confirm the source nature as a pulsar.