Double White Dwarf Mergers as Progenitors of Long-Period Transients

TL;DR

This paper proposes that long-period transients like GLEAM-X J1627-5235 are isolated, highly magnetized white dwarf pulsars formed from double white dwarf mergers, supported by modeling their rotational evolution and observational constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a model where double white dwarf mergers produce isolated, magnetized WD pulsars explaining long-period transients, supported by rotational evolution calculations.

Findings

The rotational age of GLEAM-X J1627-5235 is about 572 million years.

The model aligns with optical upper limits for GLEAM-X J1627-5235.

The approach can be applied to other long-period transients.

Abstract

There is an ongoing discussion in the literature on the nature of long-period transients (LPTs), radio-emitting sources with periods ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of seconds. Although some of these objects have been identified as white dwarf (WD) + M-dwarf binaries, this description currently does not fit the entire class. An example is GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504.3 (hereafter GLEAM-X J1627-5235), with a period of 1091 s, for which the lack of an optical counterpart disfavors the presence of such a binary system. In this case, GLEAM-X J1627-5235 could be interpreted as an isolated, massive, fast-rotating, and highly magnetized (~ 1e+9 G) WD pulsar. Its properties are consistent with a carbon-oxygen WD of mass ~1.3 Msun and radius ~2500 km, possibly supported by small-scale multipolar magnetosphere structures that keep it above the death line for WD-pulsars. We assess a double WD merger origin, modeling the post-merger rotational evolution under accretion, propeller, and magnetic braking torques. We find rotational age of ~572 Myr for GLEAM-X J1627-5235, i.e., the post-merger time required to reach its observed period. This result is consistent with current optical upper limits for GLEAM-X J1627-5235 and support the WD pulsar interpretation for this source. We also discuss how the same model can apply to other LPTs.