Pulsars in dense (Galactic) environments

Manjari Bagchi (IMSc, Chennai)

April 19, 2017

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 Dense environment in the Galaxy

• Globular clusters
• Near Galactic centre

http://sci.esa.int/iso/20490-diagram-of-the-milky-way/

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 Stellar interactions in dense stellar environment

1 single-single

2 single-binary

3 binary-binary

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1 Flyby Binary-single encounters in dense stellar environment

2 Exchange

3 Merger

4 Resonance

5 Ionization

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 Binary Pulsars in Globular Clusters

146 pulsars in 28 globular clusters (November-2016; http://www.naic.edu/∼pfreire/GCpsr.html).

MW has around 157 globular clusters

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 Binary Pulsars in Globular Clusters
100

10-1

10-2
eccentricity

-3
10

10-4

-5
10

10-6

10-7
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Porb (d)

: slow (Ps > 50 ms) pulsars,  DNSs (as in 2013)

Eccentric GC MSPs – stellar encounters (Bagchi & Ray, 2009, ApJ, 701, 1161; Bagchi & Ray, 2009, ApJ, 2009, 693, L91)
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A brief comparison between disk and GC pulsars

field pulsars GC pulsars

7% binary 52% binary

(77% MSP) (92% MSP)

93% isolated 48% isolated

(2% MSP) (90% MSP)

Abundances of binaries in GCs: 2-body capture

Abundances of MSP binaries in GCs: more close binaries – 2-body
capture
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 Spiders in globular clusters

field GC

RB 8 10

BW 17 18

No obvious difference in population properties

All 3 transitional pulsars are RB (1 in GC)

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 Looking closer to GC pulsars

Bagchi, Lorimer, Chennamangalam, 2011, MNRAS, 418, 477

We expect some (?) dependence of the number of binary MSPs on

GC properties, because:

1 Formation through capture: 2-body interaction rate (ρ1.5 2

c rc ).
2 evolution: metallicity.
3 All kinds of stellar interactions: density of stars.
4 All kinds of stellar interactions: velocity of stars.
5 Total number of stars: mass of the GC.
6 But remember, different GCs are at different distance, pulsars
in a more distant GC are difficult to detect.

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 (nt )

(ni )

(Ni )

Log-normal is the best luminosity distribution

Bagchi, Lorimer, Chennamangalam, 2011, MNRAS, 418, 477.
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Bagchi, Lorimer, Chennamangalam, 2011, MNRAS, 418, 477

We did not see any dependence of the number of pulsars on GC

properties. What does it mean?

1 Insufficient data?
2 Different formation scenario equally effective?
3 Further study needed.

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 Population of Pulsars
Initial parameters: IMF,
binary fraction, initial or-
bital parameters, masses

Binary
Evolution

Formation
of NS
binary

Binary
Evolution

Formation
of NS-WD,
NS-NS,
NS-BH

Radio
Pulsar?
Work with WVU

spin and
kinetic
evolution
of pulsars

Observability (model sur-

veys + flux degradation)

Observable
Binary
Radio
Pulsars

final parameter distributions

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 Usefulness of GC pulsars

• ISM structure (Ransom, 2007, ASPC, 365, 265)

• study of dynamics (Phinney 1992):

Ṗobs Ṗint (ap −ab ).n

(i) Pobs = Pint + c

P̈obs
(ii) Pobs = 6 × 10−28 n6 v10 s−2

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 Population of Pulsars in Globular Clusters

Future Plan:

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 Omega Cen

• Most massive: ∼ 2.64 × 106 M

47 Tuc: ∼ 1.45 × 106 M , Ter 5: ∼ 3.71 × 105 M
• Too south
(RA, DEC: 13:26:47.24, −47:28:46.5; l, b: 309.10, 14.97).
• d= 5.2 kpc (Ter 5: 6.9 kpc)
• Visible from GMRT for ∼ 4.5 hours.
(LST range 11:15 to 15:40)
• How about a uGMRT survey?

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Globular clusters in γ-rays

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 Globular clusters in γ-rays

D E
Lγ = Nγ Ė hηγ i

D E Spectrum resembles the spectra of pulsars.

Ė ' (1.8 ± 0.7) × 1034 erg s−1 is the average spin-down power of
MSPs, hηγ i ' 0.08 is the average spin-down to γ-ray luminosity
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conversion efficiency, Nγ is the number of γ-ray emitting MSPs, which
 Pulsars(?) near the Galactic Centre

• Supermassive BH (4 × 106 M ) at the centre of our Galaxy.

• Mass seggregation is happening (not completely done -
timescale is 10,000 times than the age) – but still many
massive stars near the centre.
• Many BH, NS, WDs near the centre.
• Number density of stars very high
• Formation of binary due to tidal capture is highly probable.
• 3-body stellar interactions are important (as discussed for
globular clusters).
• Stars very close to it orbiting around it.
• NS-MS, NS-WD, NS-NS, NS-BH orbiting around the centre?
– Three body problem?
• ONLY SGR J1745−2900 - located only ∼ 2.500 away from Sgr
A∗ (neutral hydrogen column density and DM consistent with
it being within ∼ 2 pc (1 pc = 3 × 1013 km) of Sgr A∗ .
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 Pulsars(?) near the Galactic Centre

• Scatter broadening in the dense ISM is likely to be the culprit.

• Efforts with higher and higher frequency (where the effect of
the scattering is less). But no sucess yet :(
• Pulsars are intrinsically fainter at high frequency (L ∝ ν −1.7 )

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 Pulsars(?) near the Galactic Centre: new hope

• Detection of SGR J1745−2900 in 1.2 to 18 GHz (Bower et al

2014; Spitler et al 2014).
• Pulse Boradening at 1 GHz is several orders of magnitude
lower than that predicted by NE2001 model (Spitler et al
2014).
• The optimal search frequencies are ' 8 GHz (weak-scattering)
and ' 25 GHz (strong-scattering), for pulsars with periods
1−20 ms, assuming that GC pulsars have a luminosity
distribution similar to that those in the rest of the Milky Way
(Macquart & Kanekar, 2015, ApJ, 805, 172).

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Pulsars(?) near the Galactic Centre

(arXiv: 1512.06825; 21-Dec-2015)

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Pulsars(?) near the Galactic Centre

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Pulsars(?) near the Galactic Centre: GW - IPTA - InPTA

(2011, ApJ ....)

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