Einstein@Home discovery of a Double-Neutron Star Binary in the PALFA Survey

Understand

We report here the Einstein@Home discovery of PSR J1913+1102, a 27.3-ms pulsar found in data from the ongoing Arecibo PALFA pulsar survey.

• The pulsar is in a 4.95-hr double neutron star (DNS) system with an eccentricity of 0.089.
• From radio timing with the Arecibo 305-m telescope, we measure the rate of advance of periastron to be 5.632(18) deg/yr.
• Assuming general relativity accurately models the orbital motion, this corresponds to a total system mass of 2.875(14) solar masses, similar to the mass of the most massive DNS known to date, B1913+16, but with a much smaller eccentricity.