• Accepted Paper

What are pulsar companions made of? Using gravitational tides to probe their compositions

Liam Colombo-Murphy, Lucas Brown, Stefano Profumo, M. Grant Roberts, and Aya Westerling

Phys. Rev. D - Accepted 14 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mh8d-1b6b

Abstract

Low eccentricity, short orbital period pulsar companions may provide a probe to study uniquely dense and stable exoplanet internal compositions due to the potentially high orbital evolution they experience caused by strong gravitational tides. We model the tidal characteristics such as apsidal motion constants, orbital precession, and tidal deformability for a variety of equations of state to be compared with values recovered via pulsar timing for a sample of two systems: PSR J1719-1438b and PSR J0636+5128b. With more time observing these companions through pulsar time of arrival measurements and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) enabling improved constraints on companion parameters, it may be possible to use this method in the future to improve limits on their chemical and structural compositions and provide more information on their unique history and formation.

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