The Radius of the High-mass Pulsar PSR J0740+6620 with 3.6 yr of NICER Data

Abstract We report an updated analysis of the radius, mass, and heated surface regions of the massive pulsar PSR J0740+6620 using Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) data from 2018 September 21 to 2022 April 21, a substantial increase in data set size compared to previous analyses. Using a tight mass prior from radio-timing measurements and jointly modeling the new NICER data with XMM-Newton data, the inferred equatorial radius and gravitational mass are 12.49 − 0.88 + 1.28 km and 2.073 − 0.069 + 0.069 M ⊙ , respectively, each reported as the posterior credible interval bounded by the 16% and 84% quantiles, with an estimated systematic error ≲ 0.1 km. This result was obtained…

• SI
  Smithsonian Institution
• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• CN
  Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales
• NO
  Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
• NS
  Nuclear Safety and Security Commission
• GS
  Goddard Space Flight Center
• SA
  Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
• NS
  Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

  Awards: 2019-06077, 06077, RGPIN-2019, RGPIN-2019-06077
• OO
  Office of Naval Research
• AS
  Astrophysics Science Division
• AD
  Astrophysics Division
• HE
  HORIZON EUROPE European Research Council

  Award: 865768