The spectrum of the recycled PSR J0437-4715 and its white dwarf companion

Understand

We present extensive spectral and photometric observations of the recycled pulsar/white-dwarf binary containing PSR J0437-4715, which we analyzed together with archival X-ray and gamma-ray data, to obtain the complete mid-infrared to gamma-ray spectrum.

• We first fit each part of the spectrum separately, and then the whole multi-wavelength spectrum.
• We find that the optical-infrared part of the spectrum is well fit by a cool white dwarf atmosphere model with pure hydrogen composition.
• The model atmosphere (Teff = 3950pm150K, log g=6.98pm0.15, R_WD=(1.9pm0.2)e9 cm) fits our spectral data remarkably well for the known mass and distance (M=0.25pm0.02Msun, d=156.3pm1.3pc), yielding the white dwarf age (tau=6.0pm0.5Gyr).