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PSR J1641+8049 is a 2 ms black widow pulsar with the 2.2 h orbital period detected in the radio and γ-rays. We performed new phase-resolved multiband photometry of PSR J1641+8049 using the OSIRIS instrument at the Gran Telescopio Canarias. The obtained data were analysed together with the new radio-timing observations from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), the X-ray data from the Spectrum-RG/eROSITA all-sky survey, and all available optical photometric observations. An updated timing solution based on CHIME data is presented, which accounts for secular and periodic modulations in pulse dispersion. The system parameters obtained through the light-curve analysis, including the distance to the source 4.6–4.8 kpc and the orbital inclination 56–59 deg, are found to be consistent with previous studies. However, the optical flux of the source at the maximum brightness phase faded by a factor of ∼2 as compared to previous observations. Nevertheless, the face of the J1641+8049 companion remains one of the most heated (8000–9500 K) by a pulsar among the known black widow pulsars. We also report a new estimation on the pulsar proper motion of ≈2 mas yr−1, which yields a spin-down luminosity of ≈4.87 × 1034 erg s−1 and a corresponding heating efficiency of the companion by the pulsar of 0.3–0.7. The pulsar was not detected in X-rays implying its X-ray-luminosity was $\lesssim$3 × 1031 erg s−1 at the date of observations.

 

Color centers in solids, such as the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond, offer well-protected and well-controlled localized electron spins that can be employed in various quantum technologies. Moreover, the long coherence time of the surrounding spinful nuclei can enable a robust quantum register controlled through the color center.We design pulse sequence protocols that drive the electron spin to generate robust entangling gates with these nuclear memory qubits.We find that compared to using Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) alone, Uhrig decoupling sequence and hybrid protocols composed of CPMG and Uhrig sequences improve these entangling gates in terms of fidelity, spin control range, and spin selectivity. We provide analytical expressions for the sequence protocols and also show numerically the efficacy of our method on nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. Our results are broadly applicable to color centers weakly coupled to a small number of nuclear spin qubits. 

Abstract We report the discovery of seven new Galactic pulsars with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment’s Fast Radio Burst (CHIME/FRB) backend. These sources were first identified via single pulses in CHIME/FRB, then followed up with CHIME/Pulsar. Four sources appear to be rotating radio transients, pulsar-like sources with occasional single-pulse emission with an underlying periodicity. Of those four sources, three have detected periods ranging from 220 ms to 2.726 s. Three sources have more persistent but still intermittent emission and are likely intermittent or nulling pulsars. We have determined phase-coherent timing solutions for the latter two. These seven sources are the first discovery of previously unknown Galactic sources with CHIME/FRB and highlight the potential of fast radio burst detection instruments to search for intermittent Galactic radio sources. 

Abstract We present new discoveries and results from long-term timing of 72 pulsars discovered in the Pulsar Arecibo L -band Feed Array (PALFA) survey, including precise determination of astrometric and spin parameters, and flux density and scatter broadening measurements at 1.4 GHz. Notable discoveries include two young pulsars (characteristic ages ∼30 kyr) with no apparent supernova remnant associations, three mode-changing, 12 nulling and two intermittent pulsars. We detected eight glitches in five pulsars. Among them is PSR J1939+2609, an apparently old pulsar (characteristic age ∼1 Gy), and PSR J1954+2529, which likely belongs to a newly emerging class of binary pulsars. The latter is the only pulsar among the 72 that is clearly not isolated: a nonrecycled neutron star with a 931 ms spin period in an eccentric ( e = 0.114) wide ( P b = 82.7 days) orbit with a companion of undetermined nature having a minimum mass of ∼0.6 M ⊙ . Since operations at Arecibo ceased in 2020 August, we give a final tally of PALFA sky coverage, and compare its 207 pulsar discoveries to the known population. On average, they are 50% more distant than other Galactic plane radio pulsars; PALFA millisecond pulsars (MSPs) have twice the dispersion measure per unit spin period than the known population of MSP in the plane. The four intermittent pulsars discovered by PALFA more than double the population of such objects, which should help to improve our understanding of pulsar magnetosphere physics. The statistics for these, rotating radio transients, and nulling pulsars suggest that there are many more of these objects in the Galaxy than was previously thought. 

We search for gravitational-wave (GW) transients associated with fast radio bursts (FRBs) detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project, during the first part of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 April 1 15:00 UTC–2019 October 1 15:00 UTC). Triggers from 22 FRBs were analyzed with a search that targets both binary neutron star (BNS) and neutron star–black hole (NSBH) mergers. A targeted search for generic GW transients was conducted on 40 FRBs. We find no significant evidence for a GW association in either search. Given the large uncertainties in the distances of our FRB sample, we are unable to exclude the possibility of a GW association. Assessing the volumetric event rates of both FRB and binary mergers, an association is limited to 15% of the FRB population for BNS mergers or 1% for NSBH mergers. We report 90% confidence lower bounds on the distance to each FRB for a range of GW progenitor models and set upper limits on the energy emitted through GWs for a range of emission scenarios. We find values of order 10⁵¹–10⁵⁷erg for models with central GW frequencies in the range 70–3560 Hz. At the sensitivity of this search, we find these limits to be above the predicted GW emissions for the models considered. We also find no significant coincident detection of GWs with the repeater, FRB 20200120E, which is the closest known extragalactic FRB.