Long-term photometric monitoring and spectroscopy of the white dwarf pulsar AR Scorpii

TL;DR

This study provides a detailed long-term analysis of AR Scorpii, a unique white dwarf pulsar, confirming its spin-down rate, analyzing its spectral properties, and offering new insights into its orbital dynamics and emission mechanisms.

Contribution

It presents the first optical time-resolved spectra and modulated Doppler tomography of AR Scorpii, along with a precise measurement of its spin frequency derivative over seven years.

Findings

Confirmed the spin-down rate with 50-sigma significance

First optical spectra and Doppler tomography of the system

Estimated the M-dwarf's rotational velocity near Roche lobe filling

Abstract

AR Scorpii (AR Sco) is the only radio-pulsing white dwarf known to date. It shows a broad-band spectrum extending from radio to X-rays whose luminosity cannot be explained by thermal emission from the system components alone, and is instead explained through synchrotron emission powered by the spin-down of the white dwarf. We analysed NTT/ULTRACAM, TNT/ULTRASPEC, and GTC/HiPERCAM high-speed photometric data for AR Sco spanning almost seven years and obtained a precise estimate of the spin frequency derivative, now confirmed with 50-sigma significance. Using archival photometry, we show that the spin down rate of P/Pdot = 5.6e6 years has remained constant since 2005. As well as employing the method of pulse-arrival time fitting used for previous estimates, we also found a consistent value via traditional Fourier analysis for the first time. In addition, we obtained optical time-resolved spectra with WHT/ISIS and VLT/X-shooter. We performed modulated Doppler tomography for the first time for the system, finding evidence of emission modulated on the orbital period. We have also estimated the projected rotational velocity of the M-dwarf as a function of orbital period and found that it must be close to Roche lobe filling. Our findings provide further constraints for modelling this unique system.