The TRAPUM Large Magellanic Cloud pulsar survey with MeerKAT II: 12 new discoveries and timing solutions for 7 pulsars

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of 12 new pulsars in the Large Magellanic Cloud using MeerKAT, increasing the known population by 80%, and provides detailed timing solutions for seven of these pulsars.

Contribution

It presents 12 new pulsar discoveries in the LMC and offers the first timing solutions for seven pulsars, significantly expanding the known extragalactic pulsar population.

Findings

Discovered 12 new LMC pulsars, increasing the population by 80%.

Identified the slowest and highest DM extragalactic pulsars to date.

Provided phase-connected timing solutions for 7 pulsars.

Abstract

We report the discovery of 12 new radio pulsars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) as part of the TRAPUM (TRAnsients and PUlsars with MeerKAT) Large Survey Project, using the MeerKAT L-band receivers (856--1712\,MHz). These pulsars, discovered in 18 new pointings with 2\,hour integration times, bring the total number of pulsars identified by this ongoing survey to 19 (yielding a total of 44 LMC radio pulsars now known), representing an 80 per cent increase in the LMC radio pulsar population to date. These include PSR\,J0454$-$6927, the slowest extragalactic radio pulsar discovered to date, with a spin period of 2238\,ms, and PSR\,J0452$-$6921, which exhibits the highest dispersion measure (DM) among extragalactic radio pulsars, at 326\,pc\,cm$^{-3}$. The fastest spin period among the new discoveries is 245\,ms, and the lowest DM is 62\,pc\,cm$^{-3}$. We also present timing results for our first pulsar discoveries with MeerKAT and the Murriyang radio telescope, obtaining phase-connected solutions for seven pulsars in the LMC. These results indicate that the pulsars are isolated, canonical radio pulsars with characteristic ages up to 8.8\,Myr