The FAST Discovery of an Eclipsing Binary Millisecond Pulsar in the Globular Cluster M92 (NGC 6341)

Abstract

Abstract We report the discovery of an eclipsing binary millisecond pulsar in the globular cluster M92 (NGC 6341) with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). PSR J1717+4308A, or M92A, has a pulse frequency of 316.5 Hz (3.16 ms) and a dispersion measure of 35.45 pc cm−3. The pulsar is a member of a binary system with an orbital period of 0.20 days around a low-mass companion that has a median mass of ∼0.18 M ⊙. From observations so far, at least two eclipsing events have been observed in each orbit. The longer one lasted for ∼5000 s in the orbital phase range 0.1–0.5. The other lasted for ∼500 s and occurred between 1000 and 2000 s before or after the longer eclipsing event. The lengths of these two eclipsing events also change. These properties suggest that J1717+4308A is a “red-back” system with a low-mass main-sequence or sub-giant companion. Timing observations of the pulsar and further searches of the data for additional pulsars are ongoing.