A Survey for Millisecond Pulsars

Abstract

We have searched 960 square degrees of sky for radio pulsars, using the 305 m telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The 430 MHz survey reached a limiting sensitivity for slow pulsars of 0.7 mJy using a dual-polarization, 32 channel filter bank over 8 MHz of bandwidth. We have detected one new millisecond pulsar, 11 new slow pulsars, one previously known millisecond pulsar, and eight previously known slow pulsars. The new millisecond pulsar, PSR J2033 +17, with a period of 5.9 ms, has been found to be in a binary system. The Keplerian circular orbital solution has a period of 56.2 days and a semimajor axis of 20.7 lt-s. One of the slow pulsars, PSR J2043+2740, is the second fastest pulsar that is not either recycled or associated with a supernova remnant. It is near the Cygnus Loop remnant, but timing measurements imply a pulsar characteristic age of 1.2 Myr, which makes an association unlikely.