Other
Scientific paper
Aug 1988
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1988natur.334..686f&link_type=abstract
Nature (ISSN 0028-0836), vol. 334, Aug. 25, 1988, p. 686-689. NSF-supported research.
Other
44
Companion Stars, Optical Measurement, Pulsars, Astronomical Maps, Light Curve, Stellar Color, Stellar Spectrophotometry
Scientific paper
Observations intended to find the optical counterpart of the recently discovered millisecond pulsar PSR1957 + 20 and to study luminosity variations with orbital phase are reported. It is shown that the candidate optical counterpart is actually two stars, one the true counterpart, the other an unrelated background star. The luminosity of the system varies by at least a factor of five, with a maximum of magnitude 20.3 when the pulsar hides the companion. The phase of the variations implies that the light comes mostly from the companion star, and suggests that it is tidally locked, with the bright side constantly illuminated by the pulsar. The companion has a low color temperature, about 5500 K, which with its magnitude and the pulsar's dispersion-measure distance indicates a radius of 0.15 solar, about the size of a 0.02 solar mass hydrogen white dwarf.
Dressler Alan
Fruchter Andrew S.
Gunn James E.
Lauer Tod R.
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