A Radio Search For Pulsar Companions To SDSS Low-Mass White Dwarfs

TL;DR

This study conducted a radio search for pulsar companions to 15 low-mass white dwarfs from SDSS using the GBT, but found no signals, constraining the probability of such companions being pulsars to less than 10%.

Contribution

First targeted radio search for pulsar companions to SDSS low-mass white dwarfs, providing constraints on their likelihood of hosting pulsar companions.

Findings

No pulsar signals detected in the data.

Constraints placed on the probability of pulsar companions to LMWDs.

Results are consistent with previous non-detections.

Abstract

We have conducted a search for pulsar companions to 15 low-mass white dwarfs (LMWDs; M < 0.4 M_Sun) at 820 MHz with the NRAO Green Bank Telescope (GBT). These LMWDs were spectroscopically identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and do not show the photometric excess or spectroscopic signature associated with a companion in their discovery data. However, LMWDs are believed to evolve in binary systems and to have either a more massive WD or a neutron star as a companion. Indeed, evolutionary models of low-mass X-ray binaries, the precursors of millisecond pulsars (MSPs), produce significant numbers of LMWDs (e.g., Benvenuto & De Vito 2005), suggesting that the SDSS LMWDs may have neutron star companions. No convincing pulsar signal is detected in our data. This is consistent with the findings of van Leeuwen et al. (2007), who conducted a GBT search for radio pulsations at 340 MHz from unseen companions to eight SDSS WDs (five are still considered LMWDs; the three others are now classified as "ordinary" WDs). We discuss the constraints our non-detections place on the probability P_MSP that the companion to a given LMWD is a radio pulsar in the context of the luminosity and acceleration limits of our search; we find that P_MSP < 10 +4 -2 %.