The Origin of Isolated Millisecond Pulsars in Non-core-collapsed Globular Clusters
- 1Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas
Abstract
A significant fraction of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in globular clusters (GCs) are observed as isolated objects, despite the widely accepted scenario in which MSPs are formed through recycling in compact binary systems. The origin of these isolated objects therefore remains an open problem. In this work, we propose a combination of the Heggie–Hills law for hard/soft binaries with companion ablation as a tracer of the fraction of isolated MSPs, F i , observed in non-core-collapsed GCs. We find F i = ( 42.49 ± 1.62 ) a H − 0.5 % , where a H is the Heggie–Hills ionization radius, and that this ionization-driven model is favored over a null hypothesis in which F i is independent of a H , with a log Bayes factor of ln ( BF ) > 2.5 , providing significant evidence for a physical dependence of F i on a H . Our framework naturally explains the observed overabundance of isolated MSPs in NGC 5139 (also known as ω Centauri) and proposes binary ionization as one of the main mechanisms responsible for the production of isolated MSPs in non-core-collapsed GCs.
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BibTeX
@article{menezes2026origin,
title = {{The Origin of Isolated Millisecond Pulsars in Non-core-collapsed Globular Clusters}},
author = {Raniere de Menezes},
journal = {The Astrophysical Journal Letters},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3847/2041-8213/aeb370},
url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aeb370},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - The Origin of Isolated Millisecond Pulsars in Non-core-collapsed Globular Clusters
AU - Raniere de Menezes
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/28
JO - The Astrophysical Journal Letters
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/aeb370
UR - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aeb370
AB - A significant fraction of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in globular clusters (GCs) are observed as isolated objects, despite the widely accepted scenario in which MSPs are formed through recycling in compact binary systems. The origin of these isolated objects therefore remains an open problem. In this work, we propose a combination of the Heggie–Hills law for hard/soft binaries with companion ablation as a tracer of the fraction of isolated MSPs, F i , observed in non-core-collapsed GCs. We find F i = ( 42.49 ± 1.62 ) a H − 0.5 % , where a H is the Heggie–Hills ionization radius, and that this ionization-driven model is favored over a null hypothesis in which F i is independent of a H , with a log Bayes factor of ln ( BF ) > 2.5 , providing significant evidence for a physical dependence of F i on a H . Our framework naturally explains the observed overabundance of isolated MSPs in NGC 5139 (also known as ω Centauri) and proposes binary ionization as one of the main mechanisms responsible for the production of isolated MSPs in non-core-collapsed GCs.
SN - 2041-8213
SN - 2041-8205
ER -