GBT26A-226

Searching for the Pulses of a New Candidate Huntsman Millisecond Pulsar

Abstract

Huntsmen millisecond pulsars are a rare subclass of binary neutron stars with stripped red giant companions in orbits of several days. They represent a temporary pause in the accretion evolution of the primary compact object formed in a configuration destined for divergent evolution, which produces the most common binary pulsar configuration observed in the Galactic field: a wide detached neutron star with a white dwarf. Two main models for their evolution are currently under consideration in the literature, with separate predictions for the observable population of huntsmen and distinct implications for the evolution of binary neutron stars. With only two confirmed members of this class currently known, a larger sample is necessary explore the phenomenology of this hunstman binary pulsars and to distinguish between evolutionary models. We propose a pulsar search with the GBT at the position of a new candidate huntsman identified by its compelling gamma-ray, X-ray and optical properties.

Investigators

Name	Institution
Rebecca Kyer *	Michigan State University
Jay Strader	Michigan State University
Maura McLaughlin	West Virginia University
Megan DeCesar	George Mason University
Paul Ray	Naval Research Laboratory
Julia Deneva	Naval Research Laboratory

* indicates the PI