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. 2012 Dec 7;338(6112):1314-7.
doi: 10.1126/science.1229054. Epub 2012 Oct 25.

Binary millisecond pulsar discovery via gamma-ray pulsations

H J Pletsch  1 , L Guillemot, H Fehrmann, B Allen, M Kramer, C Aulbert, M Ackermann, M Ajello, A de Angelis, W B Atwood, L Baldini, J Ballet, G Barbiellini, D Bastieri, K Bechtol, R Bellazzini, A W Borgland, E Bottacini, T J Brandt, J Bregeon, M Brigida, P Bruel, R Buehler, S Buson, G A Caliandro, R A Cameron, P A Caraveo, J M Casandjian, C Cecchi, Ö Çelik, E Charles, R C G Chaves, C C Cheung, J Chiang, S Ciprini, R Claus, J Cohen-Tanugi, J Conrad, S Cutini, F D'Ammando, C D Dermer, S W Digel, P S Drell, A Drlica-Wagner, R Dubois, D Dumora, C Favuzzi, E C Ferrara, A Franckowiak, Y Fukazawa, P Fusco, F Gargano, N Gehrels, S Germani, N Giglietto, F Giordano, M Giroletti, G Godfrey, I A Grenier, M-H Grondin, J E Grove, S Guiriec, D Hadasch, Y Hanabata, A K Harding, P R den Hartog, M Hayashida, E Hays, A B Hill, X Hou, R E Hughes, G Jóhannesson, M S Jackson, T Jogler, A S Johnson, W N Johnson, J Kataoka, M Kerr, J Knödlseder, M Kuss, J Lande, S Larsson, L Latronico, M Lemoine-Goumard, F Longo, F Loparco, M N Lovellette, P Lubrano, F Massaro, M Mayer, M N Mazziotta, J E McEnery, J Mehault, P F Michelson, W Mitthumsiri, T Mizuno, M E Monzani, A Morselli, I V Moskalenko, S Murgia, T Nakamori, R Nemmen, E Nuss, M Ohno, T Ohsugi, N Omodei, M Orienti, E Orlando, F de Palma, D Paneque, J S Perkins, F Piron, G Pivato, T A Porter, S Rainò, R Rando, P S Ray, M Razzano, A Reimer, O Reimer, T Reposeur, S Ritz, R W Romani, C Romoli, D A Sanchez, P M Saz Parkinson, A Schulz, C Sgrò, E do Couto e Silva, E J Siskind, D A Smith, G Spandre, P Spinelli, D J Suson, H Takahashi, T Tanaka, J B Thayer, J G Thayer, D J Thompson, L Tibaldo, M Tinivella, E Troja, T L Usher, J Vandenbroucke, V Vasileiou, G Vianello, V Vitale, A P Waite, B L Winer, K S Wood, M Wood, Z Yang, S Zimmer
Affiliations

Binary millisecond pulsar discovery via gamma-ray pulsations

H J Pletsch et al. Science. .

Abstract

Millisecond pulsars, old neutron stars spun up by accreting matter from a companion star, can reach high rotation rates of hundreds of revolutions per second. Until now, all such "recycled" rotation-powered pulsars have been detected by their spin-modulated radio emission. In a computing-intensive blind search of gamma-ray data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (with partial constraints from optical data), we detected a 2.5-millisecond pulsar, PSR J1311-3430. This unambiguously explains a formerly unidentified gamma-ray source that had been a decade-long enigma, confirming previous conjectures. The pulsar is in a circular orbit with an orbital period of only 93 minutes, the shortest of any spin-powered pulsar binary ever found.

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