Green Bank Telescope Discovery of the Redback Binary Millisecond Pulsar PSR J0212+5321

Abstract

We report the discovery of a 2.11 ms binary millisecond pulsar during a targeted search of the redback optical candidate coincident with the γ-ray source 3FGL J0212.5+5320 using the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) with the Breakthrough Listen backend at L band. Over a seven month period, five pointings were made near inferior conjunction of the pulsar in its 20.9 hr orbit, resulting in two detections, lasting 12 and 42 minutes. The pulsar dispersion measure (DM) of 25.7 pc cm−3 corresponds to a distance of 1.15 kpc in the NE2001 Galactic electron density model, consistent with the Gaia parallax distance of 1.16 ± 0.03 kpc for the companion star. We suspect the pulsar experiences wide orbital eclipses, similar to other redbacks, as well as scintillation and DM delays caused by its interaction with its companion and surroundings. Although the pulsar was only detected over ≈3.7% of the orbit, its measured acceleration is consistent with published binary parameters from optical radial velocity spectroscopy and light-curve modeling of the companion star, and it provides a more precise mass ratio and a projected semimajor axis for the pulsar orbit. We also obtained a refined optical photometric orbit ephemeris, and observed variability of the tidally distorted companion over 7 yr. A hard X-ray light curve from NuSTAR shows expected orbit-modulated emission from the intrabinary shock. The pulsar parameters and photometric ephemeris greatly restrict the parameter space required to search for a coherent timing solution including pulsar spin-down rate, either using Fermi γ-rays or further radio pulse detections.