A Search for Millisecond-pulsar Radio Emission from the Faint Quiescent Soft X-ray Transient 1h 1905+000

Transitional millisecond pulsars (tMSPs) switch between an accretion-powered state without radio pulsations and a rotation-powered state with radio pulsations. In the former state, they are X-ray bright, in the latter Xray dim. Soft X-ray transients (SXTs) undergo similar switches in X-ray, between “high” states with bright X-ray outbursts and a “low” state of quiescence. The upper limit on the quiescent X-ray luminosity of SXT 1H 1905+000 suggests that its luminosity might be similar to that of the known tMSPs. A detection of radio pulsations would link SXTs more strongly with tMSPs; and thus e.g. put stricter constraints on tMSP transitional timescales, through the connection with the well-known SXT periods of quiescence. A non-detection allows us, based on the telescope sensitivity, to estimate how likely these sources are to pulsate in radio. Over a ten-year span, 2006-2015, we carried out targeted radio observations at 400/800 MHz with Arecibo, and searched for radio pulsations from the quiescent SXT 1H 1905+000. None of the observations have revealed radio pulsations from the targeted SXT. For a 1-ms pulsar our flux density upper limit is 10.3 μJy. At an assumed distance of 10 kpc this translates to a pseudo-luminosity upper limit of 1.0 mJy kpc2, which makes our search complete to ∼ 85% of the known MSP population. Given the high sensitivity, and the generally large beaming fraction of millisecond pulsars, we conclude that SXT 1H 1905+000 is unlikely to emit in radio as a transitional millisecond pulsar.