The FAST Discovery of a binary millisecond pulsar PSR~J1647-0156B (M12B) with a candidate cross matching algorithm

TL;DR

The paper introduces a cross matching algorithm for pulsar candidate identification, successfully discovering a new binary millisecond pulsar with FAST, demonstrating improved detection capabilities in archival data.

Contribution

A novel candidate cross matching algorithm that enhances pulsar discovery efficiency by combining period and dispersion measure criteria, validated through FAST observations.

Findings

Discovered pulsar PSR J1647-0156B with FAST

Algorithm effectively matches candidates across observations

Potential to find more pulsars in archival data

Abstract

We propose a pulsar candidate cross matching algorithm to sift radio pulsar search candidates from repeated observations of the same sky location such as globular clusters, high energy sources, or supernova remnants. Our method uses both the candidate spin period ($P$) and dispersion measure (DM) value; if two or more candidates from different observations have similar spin periods to within 1\%, and dispersion measure values within 10\%, they are likely to correspond to the same candidate detection. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of our method through the discovery of the pulsar M12B with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). This pulsar has a spin period of 2.76\,ms and a dispersion measure of $42.70 \pm 0.05\,\mathrm{cm}^{-3}~\mathrm{pc}$. This pulsar has a profile with three peaks, being faint, showing scintillation. It is in an approximately 0.53-day orbit. Our discovery indicates that more pulsars might be effectively discovered if the algorithm is applied to the search results from other archival globular cluster observations.