The international TRAPUM radio astrophysics collaboration has discovered 15 new millisecond pulsars in the 47 Tucanae (NGC 104) star cluster using the MeerKAT radio interferometer in South Africa. This discovery overcame a technological barrier observed over the last two decades, increasing the number of known pulsars in the cluster from 27 to 42. This is reported by Ixbt.com .
Researchers collaborated with experts from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and the University of Manchester to utilize multi-beam synthesis technology. Using specialized algorithms and the SeeKAT method, scientists succeeded in performing high-precision observations even in the extremely dense conditions of the stellar core.
12 of the identified objects are part of binary systems. The most notable among them is the pulsar 47 Tuc af, which belongs to the "black widow" type and is gradually evaporating its companion star. This discovery confirmed the link to the W34 opt source, which was recorded by the Hubble telescope in 2002 but remained a mystery.
Furthermore, the 47 Tuc ai system attracted scientists' attention due to its unusual orbital eccentricity. Such rare systems serve as perfect laboratories for studying the evolution of exotic objects in dense star clusters.
As a key part of the study, 15 years of archival data from the Parkes Observatory were reanalyzed. Using precise ephemerides obtained via MeerKAT, scientists were able to identify weak signals previously considered noise and confirm the nature of the pulsars.
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