Search for Optical Pulsation in M82 X-2

Abstract

We report on a search for optical pulsation from M82 X-2 over a range of periods. M82 X-2 is an X-ray pulsar with a 1.37s average spin period and a 2.5 day sinusoidal modulation. The observations were done with the ARray Camera for Optical to Near-IR Spectrophotometry at the 200 inch Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory. We performed H test and χ 2 statistical analysis. No significant optical pulsations were found in the wavelength range of 3000-11000 Å with a pulsation period between 1.36262 and 1.37462 s. We found an upper limit on pulsed emission in the 4000-8000 Å wavelength range to be fainter than ∼20.5 mag AB , corresponding to ∼23 μJy.

DARKNESS: A Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector Integral Field Spectrograph for High-contrast Astronomy

“…The capabilities of UVOIR MKIDs have been demonstrated on-sky with the ARray Camera for Optical to Near-infrared Spectrophotometry (ARCONS; Mazin et al 2013), a seeinglimited IFS designed for the Coudè focus at Palomar and Lick Observatories, featuring a 2024 pixel MKID array optimized for a 0.4μm to 1.1μm bandwidth. ARCONS was the first MKID camera at any wavelength to produce published astronomical science results (Strader et al 2013;Szypryt et al 2014;Strader et al 2016;Collura et al 2017). DARKNESS inherits significantly from its predecessor, ARCONS, especially in the MKID design (Section 2.2), readout electronics (Section 2.4), and analysis software (Section 4.1).…”

Applications for Microwave Kinetic Induction Detectors in Advanced Instrumentation

“…These time scales are difficult to resolve with standard CCD or CMOS cameras but pose no challenge to an MKID instrument that is read out much faster. The ARray Camera for Optical to Near-IR Spectrophotometry, ARCONS, is an MKID instrument that was used to observe pulsars [88][89][90], among them the Crab Pulsar, and demonstrated in collaboration with the Green Bank Observatory a correlation between optical pulses and so called giant radio pulses [89]. ARCONS is a 2024 pixels camera with MKIDs made from sub-stochiometric TiN x , it is sensitive between 350 nm and 1100 nm and capable to reach an energy resolution of up to 10% [91,92].…”