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Astrophysics, High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, astro-ph.HE
Abstract:
We present the discovery of five millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from the PALFA
Galactic plane survey using Arecibo. Four of these (PSRs J0557+1551,
J1850+0244, J1902+0300, and J1943+2210) are binary pulsars whose companions are
likely white dwarfs, and one (PSR J1905+0453) is isolated. Phase-coherent
timing solutions, ranging from $\sim$1 to $\sim$3 years in length, and based on
observations from the Jodrell Bank and Arecibo telescopes, provide precise
determinations of spin, orbital, and astrometric parameters. All five pulsars
have large dispersion measures ($>100$ pc cm$^{-3}$, within the top 20% of all
known Galactic field MSPs) and are faint (1.4 GHz flux density < 0.1 mJy,
within the faintest 5% of all known Galactic field MSPs), illustrating PALFA's
ability to find increasingly faint, distant MSPs in the Galactic plane. In
particular, PSR J1850+0244 has a dispersion measure of 540 pc cm$^{-3}$, the
highest of all known MSPs. Such distant, faint MSPs are important input for
accurately modeling the total Galactic MSP population.
