Pulsar discoveries from the TRAPUM UHF survey of Fermi-LAT sources
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Date
2026-02-27
Authors
Thongmeearkom, T.
Clark, C.J.
Breton, R.P.
Burgay, M.
Nieder, L.
Dodge, O.G.
McGloughlin, B.
Barr, E.D.
Buchner, S.
Stappers, B.W.
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Abstract
The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) provides advantages for radio pulsar searches by enabling efficient target selection. We can confidently point radio telescopes to the positions of Fermi unidentified gamma-ray sources that have a high probability of hosting a pulsar. As part of Transients and Pulsars with MeerKAT (TRAPUM), we conducted a survey of Fermi-LAT sources using the Ultra High Frequency (UHF; 544–1088 MHz) receiver of the MeerKAT radio telescope. We observed 79 sources that were identified as pulsar-like candidates using a random forest technique from the Fermi-LAT Fourth Source Catalogue. We observed each target for 10 min at two separate epochs. As a result, we discovered nine new millisecond pulsars (MSPs) and six slow pulsars. Based on the radio discoveries, we also searched for gamma-ray pulsations, confirming that seven of the newly discovered MSPs are associated with Fermi-LAT sources, and performed joint radio and gamma-ray pulsar timing. Companion mass estimates and evidence of radio eclipses indicate that among the nine MSPs there are three black widows and three redbacks. Lastly, we compared the discovered pulsars in the MeerKAT UHF survey against the previous Fermi sources TRAPUM survey at L band, concluding the superiority of UHF observations in sensitivity to fainter pulsars and in detection rate than L band for finding new gamma-ray MSPs. © The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.
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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of R oy al Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons A t tribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords
Binaries:general , Gamma ray production , Gamma rays: stars , Gamma-rays , Large area telescopes , Millisecond pulsars , Pulsars , Pulsars: general , Pulsars:individual , Radio astronomy , Radio pulsars , Radio telescopes , UHF devices , Ultra-high-frequency , [Physics]
Citation
Thongmeearkom, T, Clark, C J, Breton, R P, Burgay, M, Nieder, L, Dodge, O G, McGloughlin, B, Barr, E D, Buchner, S, Stappers, B W, Berteaud, J, Ferrara, E C, Freire, P C C, Levin, L, Ransom, S M, Vleeschower, L, Belmonte Díaz, S, Calore, F, Cognard, I, Dhillon, V S, Grießmeier, J, Karuppusamy, R, Kennedy, M, Kramer, M, Padmanabh, P V, Papa, M A, Phosrisom, A & Steltner, B 2026, 'Pulsar discoveries from the TRAPUM UHF survey of Fermi-LAT sources', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 547, no. 4, stag406, pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag406
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