Publication Date:
2012-11-01
Description:
Millisecond pulsars, old neutron stars spun up by accreting matter from a companion star, can reach high rotation rates of hundreds of revolutions per second. Until now, all such "recycled" rotation-powered pulsars have been detected by their spin-modulated radio emission. In a computing-intensive blind search of gamma-ray data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (with partial constraints from optical data), we detected a 2.5-millisecond pulsar, PSR J1311-3430. This unambiguously explains a formerly unidentified gamma-ray source that had been a decade-long enigma, confirming previous conjectures. The pulsar is in a circular orbit with an orbital period of only 93 minutes, the shortest of any spin-powered pulsar binary ever found.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pletsch, H J -- Guillemot, L -- Fehrmann, H -- Allen, B -- Kramer, M -- Aulbert, C -- Ackermann, M -- Ajello, M -- de Angelis, A -- Atwood, W B -- Baldini, L -- Ballet, J -- Barbiellini, G -- Bastieri, D -- Bechtol, K -- Bellazzini, R -- Borgland, A W -- Bottacini, E -- Brandt, T J -- Bregeon, J -- Brigida, M -- Bruel, P -- Buehler, R -- Buson, S -- Caliandro, G A -- Cameron, R A -- Caraveo, P A -- Casandjian, J M -- Cecchi, C -- Celik, O -- Charles, E -- Chaves, R C G -- Cheung, C C -- Chiang, J -- Ciprini, S -- Claus, R -- Cohen-Tanugi, J -- Conrad, J -- Cutini, S -- D'Ammando, F -- Dermer, C D -- Digel, S W -- Drell, P S -- Drlica-Wagner, A -- Dubois, R -- Dumora, D -- Favuzzi, C -- Ferrara, E C -- Franckowiak, A -- Fukazawa, Y -- Fusco, P -- Gargano, F -- Gehrels, N -- Germani, S -- Giglietto, N -- Giordano, F -- Giroletti, M -- Godfrey, G -- Grenier, I A -- Grondin, M-H -- Grove, J E -- Guiriec, S -- Hadasch, D -- Hanabata, Y -- Harding, A K -- den Hartog, P R -- Hayashida, M -- Hays, E -- Hill, A B -- Hou, X -- Hughes, R E -- Johannesson, G -- Jackson, M S -- Jogler, T -- Johnson, A S -- Johnson, W N -- Kataoka, J -- Kerr, M -- Knodlseder, J -- Kuss, M -- Lande, J -- Larsson, S -- Latronico, L -- Lemoine-Goumard, M -- Longo, F -- Loparco, F -- Lovellette, M N -- Lubrano, P -- Massaro, F -- Mayer, M -- Mazziotta, M N -- McEnery, J E -- Mehault, J -- Michelson, P F -- Mitthumsiri, W -- Mizuno, T -- Monzani, M E -- Morselli, A -- Moskalenko, I V -- Murgia, S -- Nakamori, T -- Nemmen, R -- Nuss, E -- Ohno, M -- Ohsugi, T -- Omodei, N -- Orienti, M -- Orlando, E -- de Palma, F -- Paneque, D -- Perkins, J S -- Piron, F -- Pivato, G -- Porter, T A -- Raino, S -- Rando, R -- Ray, P S -- Razzano, M -- Reimer, A -- Reimer, O -- Reposeur, T -- Ritz, S -- Romani, R W -- Romoli, C -- Sanchez, D A -- Saz Parkinson, P M -- Schulz, A -- Sgro, C -- do Couto e Silva, E -- Siskind, E J -- Smith, D A -- Spandre, G -- Spinelli, P -- Suson, D J -- Takahashi, H -- Tanaka, T -- Thayer, J B -- Thayer, J G -- Thompson, D J -- Tibaldo, L -- Tinivella, M -- Troja, E -- Usher, T L -- Vandenbroucke, J -- Vasileiou, V -- Vianello, G -- Vitale, V -- Waite, A P -- Winer, B L -- Wood, K S -- Wood, M -- Yang, Z -- Zimmer, S -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Dec 7;338(6112):1314-7. doi: 10.1126/science.1229054. Epub 2012 Oct 25.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Max-Planck-Institut fur Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut), D-30167 Hannover, Germany. holger.pletsch@aei.mpg.de〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23112297" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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