Very long baseline interferometry measured proper motion and parallax of the γ-ray millisecond pulsar PSR j0218+4232

Abstract

PSR J0218+4232 is a millisecond pulsar (MSP) with a flux density ∼0.9 mJy at 1.4 GHz. It is very bright in the high-energy X-ray and γ-ray domains. We conducted an astrometric program using the European VLBI Network (EVN) at 1.6 GHz to measure its proper motion and parallax. A model-independent distance would also help constrain its γ-ray luminosity. We achieved a detection of signal-to-noise ratio S/N >37 for the weak pulsar in all five epochs. Using an extragalactic radio source lying 20 arcmin away from the pulsar, we estimate the pulsar's proper motion to be μαcos δ = 5.35 ± 0.05 mas yr-1 and μδ = -3.74 ± 0.12 mas yr-1, and a parallax of π = 0.16 ± 0.09 mas. The very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) proper motion has significantly improved upon the estimates from long-term pulsar timing observations. The VLBI parallax provides the first model-independent distance constraints: kpc, with a corresponding 3σ lower-limit of d = 2.3 kpc. This is the first pulsar trigonometric parallax measurement based solely on EVN observations. Using the derived distance, we believe that PSR J0218+4232 is the most energetic γ-ray MSP known to date. The luminosity based on even our 3σ lower-limit distance is high enough to pose challenges to the conventional outer gap and slot gap models. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..