A NICER View of PSR J0030+0451: Millisecond Pulsar Parameter Estimation

Riley, T. E. and Watts, A. L. and Bogdanov, S. and Ray, P. S. and Ludlam, R. M. and Guillot, S. and Arzoumanian, Z. and Baker, C. L. and Bilous, A. V. and Chakrabarty, D. and Gendreau, K. C. and Harding, A. K. and Ho, W. C. G. and Lattimer, J. M. and Morsink, S. M. and Strohmayer, T. E. (2019) A NICER View of PSR J0030+0451: Millisecond Pulsar Parameter Estimation. The Astrophysical Journal, 887 (1). L21. ISSN 2041-8213

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Abstract

We report on Bayesian parameter estimation of the mass and equatorial radius of the millisecond pulsar PSR J0030+0451, conditional on pulse-profile modeling of Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer X-ray spectral-timing event data. We perform relativistic ray-tracing of thermal emission from hot regions of the pulsar's surface. We assume two distinct hot regions based on two clear pulsed components in the phase-folded pulse-profile data; we explore a number of forms (morphologies and topologies) for each hot region, inferring their parameters in addition to the stellar mass and radius. For the family of models considered, the evidence (prior predictive probability of the data) strongly favors a model that permits both hot regions to be located in the same rotational hemisphere. Models wherein both hot regions are assumed to be simply connected circular single-temperature spots, in particular those where the spots are assumed to be reflection-symmetric with respect to the stellar origin, are strongly disfavored. For the inferred configuration, one hot region subtends an angular extent of only a few degrees (in spherical coordinates with origin at the stellar center) and we are insensitive to other structural details; the second hot region is far more azimuthally extended in the form of a narrow arc, thus requiring a larger number of parameters to describe. The inferred mass M and equatorial radius Req are, respectively, ${1.34}_{-0.16}^{+0.15}\,{M}_{\odot }$ and ${12.71}_{-1.19}^{+1.14}\,\mathrm{km}$, while the compactness ${GM}/{R}_{\mathrm{eq}}{c}^{2}={0.156}_{-0.010}^{+0.008}$ is more tightly constrained; the credible interval bounds reported here are approximately the 16% and 84% quantiles in marginal posterior mass.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Institute Archives > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Managing Editor
Date Deposited: 29 May 2023 04:07
Last Modified: 08 Jan 2024 13:25
URI: http://eprint.subtopublish.com/id/eprint/2344

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