Einstein: Einstein@Home Discovers New Binary Radio Pulsar

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A new preprint (http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.5340) reports the second Einstein@Home discovery, of a radio pulsar orbiting a white dwarf star once every 9.4 hours. The pulsar, called J1952+2630, is spinning on its axis 48 times per second. It was discovered in data collected at Arecibo Observatory in 2005 by the PALFA Collaboration. The white-dwarf companion star is unusually massive, and weighs at least 95% as much as our sun. This means that J1952+2630 probably belongs to a rare class of intermediate-mass binary pulsars (five were previously known). Congratulations to the two Einstein@Home participants whose computers found J1952+2630 with the highest significance: Dr. Vitaliy V. Shiryaev (http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/view_profile.php?userid=303054) (Moscow, Russia) and Stacey Eastham (http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/view_profile.php?userid=486805) (Darwen, UK)! And a big "thank you" to all Einstein@Home volunteers, whose continuing support makes these exciting discoveries possible. Bruce Allen Director, Einstein@Home

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