Discovery of the Slowest Radio Pulsar in the Small Magellanic Cloud
Abstract
We report the discovery of a new radio pulsar PSR J0103−72 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) through a reanalysis of Parkes/Murriyang archival observations targeting supernova remnants and pulsar-wind nebulae in the SMC. Previously two pulsars were discovered in these observations, and PSR J0103−72 is the third which we independently detected in two observations of its target field. It has a spin period of 1.327 sec and a dispersion measure (DM) of 272±13 pc cm−3, making it the slowest known radio pulsar in the SMC with the second-highest DM. We did not identify any plausible supernova remnant or pulsar-wind nebula associated with the pulsar. Subtracting the predicted Galactic foreground leaves a DM contribution of ∼ 230--242 pc cm−3, which may suggest a long path through the ionized medium of the SMC, enhanced ionized gas along the sightline, or both. Although these data had previously been searched using both FFT and fast folding algorithms, our FFT-based reprocessing found PSR J0103−72 through search techniques which have previously been highly effective in discovering a large number of pulsars in other surveys. This discovery shows that candidates with weak Fourier-domain significance can reveal faint, narrow-duty cycle pulsars missed in earlier extragalactic pulsar searches.
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BibTeX
@misc{wang2026discovery,
title = {{Discovery of the Slowest Radio Pulsar in the Small Magellanic Cloud}},
author = {Weiyu Wang and Rahul Sengar},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.12143},
eprint = {2610.12143},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.12143},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Discovery of the Slowest Radio Pulsar in the Small Magellanic Cloud
AU - Weiyu Wang
AU - Rahul Sengar
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.12143
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.12143
AB - We report the discovery of a new radio pulsar PSR J0103−72 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) through a reanalysis of Parkes/Murriyang archival observations targeting supernova remnants and pulsar-wind nebulae in the SMC. Previously two pulsars were discovered in these observations, and PSR J0103−72 is the third which we independently detected in two observations of its target field. It has a spin period of 1.327 sec and a dispersion measure (DM) of 272±13 pc cm^−3, making it the slowest known radio pulsar in the SMC with the second-highest DM. We did not identify any plausible supernova remnant or pulsar-wind nebula associated with the pulsar. Subtracting the predicted Galactic foreground leaves a DM contribution of ∼ 230--242 pc cm^−3, which may suggest a long path through the ionized medium of the SMC, enhanced ionized gas along the sightline, or both. Although these data had previously been searched using both FFT and fast folding algorithms, our FFT-based reprocessing found PSR J0103−72 through search techniques which have previously been highly effective in discovering a large number of pulsars in other surveys. This discovery shows that candidates with weak Fourier-domain significance can reveal faint, narrow-duty cycle pulsars missed in earlier extragalactic pulsar searches.
ER -