Gaia Pulsars and Where to Find Them in EDR3
Abstract
The Early Gaia Data Release 3 (EDR3) provides precise astrometry for nearly 1.5 billion sources across the entire sky. A few tens of these are associated with neutron stars in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds. Here, we report on a search for EDR3 counterparts to known rotation-powered pulsars using the method outlined in Antoniadis. A cross-correlation between EDR3 and the ATNF pulsar catalog identifies 41 close astrometric pairs (≲0"5 at the reference epoch of the pulsar position). Twenty six of these are related to previously known optical counterparts, while the rest are candidate pairs that require further follow-up. Highlights include the Crab Pulsar (PSR B0531+21), for which EDR3 yields a distance of ${2.08}_{-0.45}^{+0.78}$ kpc (or ${2.00}_{-0.38}^{+0.56}$ kpc taking into account the dispersion-measure prior; errors indicate 95% confidence limits) and PSR 1638-4608, a pulsar thus-far considered to be isolated that lies within 0"056 of a Gaia source.
- Publication:
-
Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2012.06335
- Bibcode:
- 2020RNAAS...4..223A
- Keywords:
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- Binary pulsars;
- Millisecond pulsars;
- Optical pulsars;
- Radio pulsars;
- Rotation powered pulsars;
- Sky surveys;
- 153;
- 1062;
- 1173;
- 1353;
- 1408;
- 1464;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- To appear in RNAAS