Pulsar candidates towards Fermi unassociated sources

We report on a search for steep spectrum radio sources within the 95 per cent confidence error ellipses of the Fermi unassociated sources from the Large Area Telescope (LAT). Using existing catalogues and the newly released Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope all-sky survey at 150 MHz, we identify compa...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Frail, D., Mooley, K., Jagannathan, P., Intema, Hubertus
Format: Journal Article
Published: Oxford University Press 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/74534
_version_ 1848763301925748736
author Frail, D.
Mooley, K.
Jagannathan, P.
Intema, Hubertus
author_facet Frail, D.
Mooley, K.
Jagannathan, P.
Intema, Hubertus
author_sort Frail, D.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description We report on a search for steep spectrum radio sources within the 95 per cent confidence error ellipses of the Fermi unassociated sources from the Large Area Telescope (LAT). Using existing catalogues and the newly released Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope all-sky survey at 150 MHz, we identify compact radio sources that are bright at MHz frequencies but faint or absent at GHz frequencies. Such steep spectrum radio sources are rare and constitute a sample of pulsar candidates, selected independently of period, dispersion measure, interstellar scattering and orbital parameters. We find point-like, steep spectrum candidates towards 11 Fermi sources. Based on the gamma-ray/radio positional coincidence, the rarity of such radio sources, and the properties of the 3FGL sources themselves, we argue that many of these sources could be pulsars. They may have been missed by previous radio periodicity searches due to interstellar propagation effects or because they lie in an unusually tight binary. If this hypothesis is correct, then renewed gamma-ray and radio periodicity searches at the positions of the steep spectrum radio sources may reveal pulsations.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T11:01:18Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-74534
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:01:18Z
publishDate 2016
publisher Oxford University Press
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-745342019-03-13T02:06:12Z Pulsar candidates towards Fermi unassociated sources Frail, D. Mooley, K. Jagannathan, P. Intema, Hubertus We report on a search for steep spectrum radio sources within the 95 per cent confidence error ellipses of the Fermi unassociated sources from the Large Area Telescope (LAT). Using existing catalogues and the newly released Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope all-sky survey at 150 MHz, we identify compact radio sources that are bright at MHz frequencies but faint or absent at GHz frequencies. Such steep spectrum radio sources are rare and constitute a sample of pulsar candidates, selected independently of period, dispersion measure, interstellar scattering and orbital parameters. We find point-like, steep spectrum candidates towards 11 Fermi sources. Based on the gamma-ray/radio positional coincidence, the rarity of such radio sources, and the properties of the 3FGL sources themselves, we argue that many of these sources could be pulsars. They may have been missed by previous radio periodicity searches due to interstellar propagation effects or because they lie in an unusually tight binary. If this hypothesis is correct, then renewed gamma-ray and radio periodicity searches at the positions of the steep spectrum radio sources may reveal pulsations. 2016 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/74534 10.1093/mnras/stw1390 Oxford University Press fulltext
spellingShingle Frail, D.
Mooley, K.
Jagannathan, P.
Intema, Hubertus
Pulsar candidates towards Fermi unassociated sources
title Pulsar candidates towards Fermi unassociated sources
title_full Pulsar candidates towards Fermi unassociated sources
title_fullStr Pulsar candidates towards Fermi unassociated sources
title_full_unstemmed Pulsar candidates towards Fermi unassociated sources
title_short Pulsar candidates towards Fermi unassociated sources
title_sort pulsar candidates towards fermi unassociated sources
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/74534