A New Accretion Disk around the Missing Link Binary System PSR J1023+0038
Patruno, A. and Archibald, A. M. and Hessels, J. W. T. and Bogdanov, S. and Stappers, B. W. and Bassa, C. G. and Janssen, G. H. and Kaspi, V. M. and Tendulkar, S. and Lyne, A. G. (2014) A New Accretion Disk around the Missing Link Binary System PSR J1023+0038. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 781 (1). Art. No. L3. ISSN 2041-8205. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20140210-081026264
PSR J1023+0038 is an exceptional system for understanding how slowly rotating neutron stars are spun up to millisecond rotational periods through accretion from a companion star. Observed as a radio pulsar from 2007–2013, optical data showed that the system had an accretion disk in 2000/2001. Starting at the end of 2013 June, the radio pulsar has become undetectable, suggesting a return to the previous accretion-disk state, where the system more closely resembles an X-ray binary. In this Letter we report the first targeted X-ray observations ever performed of the active phase and complement them with UV/optical and radio observations collected in 2013 October. We find strong evidence that indeed an accretion disk has recently formed in the system and we report the detection of fast X-ray changes spanning about two orders of magnitude in luminosity. No radio pulsations are seen during low flux states in the X-ray light curve or at any other times.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/781/1/L3 DOI Article
Hessels, J. W. T. 0000-0003-2317-1446
Bogdanov, S. 0000-0002-9870-2742
Kaspi, V. M. 0000-0001-9345-0307
Tendulkar, S. 0000-0003-2548-2926
© 2014 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 October 28; accepted 2013 November 22; published 2013 December 23. We thank D. Russell for providing the optical/X-ray LMXB data of Figure 3. We thank the Swift team for promptly scheduling the X-ray and UV observations. A.P. acknowledges support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Vidi fellowship. A.M.A. and J.W.T.H. acknowledge funding for this work from an NWO Vrije Competitie grant. The WSRT is operated by ASTRON with support from NWO.
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) UNSPECIFIED
pulsars: individual (PSR J1023+0038); X-rays: binaries
A New Accretion Disk around the Missing Link Binary System PSR J1023+0038 A. Patruno et al. 2014 ApJ 781 L3