Testing the Accretion-induced Field-decay and Spin-up Model for Recycled Pulsars

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the accretion-induced field decay and spin-up model can produce millisecond pulsars with weak magnetic fields and short spin periods, aligning with observations and suggesting mass availability limits spin frequency.

Contribution

The study validates the accretion-induced field decay and spin-up model as a mechanism for forming observed millisecond pulsars with specific magnetic fields and spin periods.

Findings

Recycled pulsars can have magnetic fields of 10^8-10^9 G.

Spin periods of a few milliseconds are achievable.

The maximum observed spin frequency may be limited by available accreted mass.

Abstract

Millisecond radio pulsars have long been proposed to form from a spin-up recycling process in a binary system. In this paper we demonstrate that the accretion-induced field-decay and spin-up model for recycled pulsars can indeed produce those millisecond pulsars with relatively weak magnetic fields of $10^8-10^9$ G and short spin periods of a few milliseconds. Our results also suggest that the value of the currently observed highest spin frequency of millisecond pulsars may simply be constrained by the amount of mass available for accretion.