Search for Optical Pulsations in PSR J0337+1715

TL;DR

This study searched for optical pulsations from the millisecond pulsar PSR J0337+1715 using high-sensitivity observations but did not detect any, setting upper limits on pulsed optical emission.

Contribution

First optical pulsation search for PSR J0337+1715 with ARCONS, establishing new upper limits on optical pulsations in the 4000-11000 Å range.

Findings

No significant optical pulsations detected.

Pulsed emission in g-band is fainter than 25 mag.

Constraints on optical emission from millisecond pulsars.

Abstract

We report on a search for optical pulsations from PSR J0337+1715 at its observed radio pulse period. PSR J0337+1715 is a millisecond pulsar (2.7 ms spin period) in a triple hierarchical system with two white dwarfs, and has a known optical counterpart with g-band magnitude 18. The observations were done with the Array Camera for Optical to Near-IR Spectrophotometry (ARCONS) at the 200" Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. No significant pulsations were found in the range 4000-11000 angstroms, and we can limit pulsed emission in g-band to be fainter than 25 mag.