Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, June 21 (Xinhua)-- according to Xinhua News Agency, Chinese researchers have once again made use of Tianyan FAST to make an important achievement. Using Chinese Sky Eye FAST, the research team has discovered a binary system called PSR J195334-1844 (M71E). Its orbital period is only 53 minutes, which is the shortest pulsar binary system found so far.

Officials say the discovery fills a missing link in the evolutionary model of spider pulsars. This result was published in the international academic journal Nature on June 21 (CTOnews.com attached DOI:10.1038/s41586-023,06308Murw)

Reviewers of the journal Nature commented: this result has discovered a very interesting pulsar binary system; this discovery shortens the shortest orbital period of the pulsar binary system by about 30%. It indicates that there is a new unknown process in the evolution of spider pulsars.

According to existing astrophysical models, if two stars are close to each other, the pulsar will swallow the matter of the star next to it and make itself spin faster and faster. Because of the large initial mass of the star, as the pulsar cannibalizes the star, the distance between the two stars becomes closer and closer, and the speed around each other becomes faster and faster; with the evolution of the binary system, the mass of the star becomes smaller after a large amount of erosion, and it is difficult for the pulsar to continue to accrete and push the star away, so the speed of the two stars orbiting each other becomes slower. Because this behavior is similar to the behavior of female spiders in nature that devour male spiders to feed themselves, astronomers name these objects after two species of spiders, redback and black widow, collectively known as spider pulsars (spider pulsar).

The evolution of pulsar-star systems from "redback" to "black widow" can take hundreds of millions of years. Previously, astronomers only detected systems in the states of "red back" and "black widow" respectively, but did not find the intermediate state of the two evolution. The reason is that the orbital period of the pulsar at this stage is very short and the distance between the two stars is very close, which poses a great challenge to the observation. Therefore, the theory of the evolution of spider pulsars from "red back" to "black widow" has not been fully confirmed.

With the ultra-high sensitivity and strong detection ability of Chinese Sky Eye FAST, this evolution path has been confirmed. The research team used FAST to detect the M71E double star system, and after long-term observation, it was determined that the time for the two stars to orbit in only 53 minutes, which is the fastest spider pulsar system ever found. It is determined to be in the middle of the evolution process from red back to black widow system, filling in the missing link of spider pulsar evolution theory (figure 2). At the same time, the orbital plane of the binary system is almost facing the earth, which is extremely rare, and more discoveries are expected in further research.

Reviewers in the journal Nature commented on the discovery of a very interesting pulsar binary system, which shortened the shortest orbital period of the pulsar binary system by about 30%. It indicates that there is a new unknown process in the evolution of spider pulsars.

The co-lead authors of the article include Pan Zhicheng, Lu Jiguang and Chen Hailiang of Yunnan Observatory. The correspondent authors include Jiang Peng and Han Jinlin of the National Astronomical Observatory and Zhang Bing of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in the United States. the collaborators are from Guizhou Radio Observatory of Guizhou University, Yunnan Observatory, Shanghai Observatory, National time Service Center, Peking University, Chinese Academy of Sciences University, Max Planck Institute in Germany, University of Nevada at Las Vegas in the United States, and many other domestic and foreign units.

This research is supported by the Youth team in the Field of stable support basic Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and supported by the Outstanding Youth Fund, the face Project, the Joint Fund, the Youth Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National key Research and Development Program and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Figure 1: left: the red arrow indicates the location of M71E, next to globular cluster M71; right: the average pulse profile and polarization position angle of M71E from FAST observations.

Figure 2:M71E 's position on the mass-orbital periodic diagram of the companion star. The red and blue lines represent the paths simulated by binary evolution theory. M71E is in the middle state of evolution. The authors are from the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the School of Astronomy and Space Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Yunnan Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Guizhou Radio Astronomical Observatory of Guizhou University, the Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy, the Department of Astronomy of Peking University, the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of Peking University, State key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Center for Astrophysics, University of Nevada, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, National time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, big data State key Laboratory, Guizhou University.

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