Revealing a New Black Widow Binary 4FGL J0336.0+7502

Abstract

Abstract We report on the discovery of a promising candidate for a black widow (BW) millisecond pulsar binary, 4FGL J0336.0+7502, which shows many pulsar-like properties in the 4FGL-DR2 catalog. Within the 95% error region of the LAT source, we identified an optical counterpart with a clear periodicity at P orb = 3.718178(9) hr using the Bohyunsan 1.8 m Telescope, the Lulin One-meter Telescope, the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope, and Gemini-North. At the optical position, an X-ray source was marginally detected in the Swift/X-Ray Telescope archival data, and the detection was confirmed by our Chandra/ACIS DDT observation. The spectrum of the X-ray source can be described by a power-law model of Γ x = 1.6 ± 0.7 and erg cm−2 s−1. The X-ray photon index and the low X-ray-to-γ-ray flux ratio (i.e., <1%) are both consistent with that of many known BW pulsars. There is also a hint of an X-ray orbital modulation in the Chandra data, although the significance is very low (1.3σ). If the pulsar identity and the X-ray modulation are confirmed, it would be the fifth BW millisecond pulsar binary that showed an orbitally modulated emission in X-rays.