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MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array parallaxes and proper motions

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arxiv 2401.06963 v1 pith:RQEYJMWZ submitted 2024-01-13 astro-ph.HE

classification astro-ph.HE
keywords mspspulsarsvelocitypropervelocitiesparallaxesmotionssigma
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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abstract

We have determined positions, proper motions, and parallaxes of $77$ millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from $\sim3$ years of MeerKAT radio telescope observations. Our timing and noise analyses enable us to measure $35$ significant parallaxes ($12$ of them for the first time) and $69$ significant proper motions. Eight pulsars near the ecliptic have an accurate proper motion in ecliptic longitude only. PSR~J0955$-$6150 has a good upper limit on its very small proper motion ($<$0.4 mas yr$^{-1}$). We used pulsars with accurate parallaxes to study the MSP velocities. This yields $39$ MSP transverse velocities, and combined with MSPs in the literature (excluding those in Globular Clusters) we analyse $66$ MSPs in total. We find that MSPs have, on average, much lower velocities than normal pulsars, with a mean transverse velocity of only $78(8)$ km s$^{-1}$ (MSPs) compared with $246(21)$ km s$^{-1}$ (normal pulsars). We found no statistical differences between the velocity distributions of isolated and binary millisecond pulsars. From Galactocentric cylindrical velocities of the MSPs, we derive 3-D velocity dispersions of $\sigma_{\rho}$, $\sigma_{\phi}$, $\sigma_{z}$ = $63(11)$, $48(8)$, $19(3)$ km s$^{-1}$. We measure a mean asymmetric drift with amplitude $38(11)$ km s$^{-1}$, consistent with expectation for MSPs, given their velocity dispersions and ages. The MSP velocity distribution is consistent with binary evolution models that predict very few MSPs with velocities $>300$ km s$^{-1}$ and a mild anticorrelation of transverse velocity with orbital period.

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Cited by 7 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

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    astro-ph.HE 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 8.0 of 10

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  2. A Square Kilometre Array Pulsar Census

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 5.5 of 10

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    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

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    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

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    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 accept novelty 2.5 of 10

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    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 accept novelty 2.0 of 10

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