2007/07/11 by J. W. T. Hessels, S. M. Ransom, I. H. Stairs +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/521780
27 pages, 6 tables, 5 figures Submitted to ApJ, includes referee comments
arxiv created 2007/07/11 · openalex publication_date 2007/11/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We have surveyed all 22 known Galactic globular clusters observable with the Arecibo radio telescope and within 70 kpc of the Sun for radio pulsations at ~1.4 GHz. Data were taken with the Wideband Arecibo Pulsar Processor, which provided the large bandwidth and high time and frequency resolution needed to detect fast-spinning, faint pulsars. We have also employed advanced search techniques to maintain sensitivity to short orbital period binaries. These searches have discovered 11 new millisecond pulsars and two promising candidates in five clusters, almost doubling the population of pulsars in the Arecibo-visible globular clusters. Ten of these new pulsars are in binary systems, and three are eclipsing. This survey has discovered significantly more very fast spinning pulsars ( P spin ≲ 4 ms) and short orbital period systems ( P orb ≲ 6 hr) than previous surveys of the same clusters. We discuss some properties of these systems, as well as some characteristics of the globular cluster pulsar population in general, particularly its luminosity distribution.