J/ApJ/994/8 SpiderCat, Compact Binary Millisecond Pulsars (Koljonen+, 2025)
SpiderCat: A Catalog of Compact Binary Millisecond Pulsars.
Koljonen K.I.I., Linares M.
<Astrophys. J. 994, 8 (2025)>
=2025ApJ...994....8K 2025ApJ...994....8K (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Binaries, X-ray ; Pulsars ; Gamma rays
Keywords: Neutron stars - Millisecond pulsars - Low-mass X-ray binary stars
Abstract:
We present SpiderCat, a multiwavelength catalog of all publicly known
compact binary millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the Galactic field. These
systems, colloquially known as "spiders", consist of neutron stars
in tight orbits with low-mass companions, which are gradually ablated
by the pulsar wind. SpiderCat includes both primary
subclasses-redbacks and black widows-distinguished by companion mass,
as well as candidates and peculiar systems such as transitional,
huntsman, and tidarren MSPs. As of this initial release, SpiderCat
contains 111 entries: 30 redbacks, 50 black widows, two huntsmans, 23
redback candidates, five black widow candidates, and one huntsman
candidate. In this paper, we compile and summarize key parameters for
each system, including spin and orbital properties, and
multiwavelength data from radio, optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray
observations. An interactive, publicly accessible web interface, at
https://astro.phys.ntnu.no/SpiderCAT, enables exploration and
visualization of the data. The rapid growth of the number of known
spiders, accelerated by the Fermi Large Area Telescope survey and its
ability to identify MSPs in gamma rays, has opened the door to
population-level studies. Utilizing SpiderCat, we analyze trends in
spin period, orbital period, companion mass, emission properties, and
spatial distribution. SpiderCat serves as a dynamic, multiwavelength
repository for this unique class of binary pulsars, facilitating new
discoveries and constraints on pulsar evolution, particle
acceleration, and the neutron star equation of state.
Description:
SpiderCat is a compiled catalog of all publicly known "spider"
millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the Galactic field, including confirmed
black widows, redbacks, huntsman systems, and candidate systems. The
catalog provides uniform spin, orbital, positional, and
multiwavelength information drawn from the literature, the ATNF Pulsar
Catalog, the Galactic MSP list, and major X-ray, gamma-ray, and
optical surveys. The release contains 111 systems, each listed with
discovery information and basic pulsar/dynamical parameters,
cross-matched X-ray counterparts, gamma-ray and optical counterparts,
and derived quantities such as distances, fluxes/luminosities, and
optical magnitudes/colors. Together these tables form a unified,
multiwavelength reference for the study of spider MSPs and candidate
systems in the Galactic field.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table2.dat 147 111 Spider catalog
refs.dat 79 100 References
table3.dat 120 89 X-ray and gamma-ray counterparts
table4.dat 120 73 Optical and infrared counterparts
table5.dat 153 111 Spider distances and luminosities
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See also:
B/psr : ATNF Pulsar Catalogue (Manchester+, 2005)
I/355 : Gaia DR3 Part 1. Main source (Gaia Collaboration, 2022)
VII/233 : 2MASS All-Sky Extended Source Catalog (XSC) (IPAC/UMass, 2003-2006)
II/349 : The Pan-STARRS release 1 (PS1) Survey - DR1 (Chambers+, 2016)
II/379 : SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey. DR4 (Onken+, 2024)
IX/58 : 2SXPS Swift X-ray telescope point source catalogue (Evans+, 2020)
IX/70 : Chandra Source Catalog Release 2 (CSC 2.1) (Evans+, 2024)
IX/69 : XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source Catalogue 4XMM-DR13 (Webb+, 2023)
IX/67 : Incremental Fermi LAT 4th source cat. (4FGL-DR3)
(Fermi-LAT col., 2022)
J/A+A/682/A34 : SRG/eROSITA all-sky survey catalogs (eRASS1) (Merloni+, 2024)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 21 A21 --- Name Source name (1)
23- 25 A3 --- Type Spider Type (2)
27- 28 A2 --- Subtype Spider subtype (3)
30- 31 I2 h RAh Right Ascension (J2000)
33- 34 I2 min RAm Right Ascension (J2000)
36- 53 F18.15 s RAs Right Ascension (J2000)
55 A1 --- DE- Declination sign (J2000)
56- 57 I2 deg DEd Declination (J2000)
59- 60 I2 arcmin DEm Declination (J2000)
62- 79 F18.15 arcsec DEs Declination (J2000)
81- 84 I4 --- Year Year of discovery (4)
86- 87 I2 --- RefDisc Reference for the discovery publication,
in refs.dat file
89-107 F19.16 ms P ? Barycentric spin period of the pulsar
109-116 E8.2 10-7W Edot ? Spin down luminosity
118-136 F19.15 h Pb ? Binary period of pulsar
138-144 F7.5 solMass Mcmin ? The minimum companion mass (5)
146-147 I2 --- RefDyn Reference for the dynamical parameters,
in refs.dat file
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Note (1): Preceded by PSR if confirmed pulsar, otherwise the name used in the
discovery paper
Note (2): Spider Type as follows:
BW = Black widow
RB = Redback
HM = Huntsman
BWc = Black widow candidate
RBc = Redback candidate
HMc = Huntsman candidate
Note (3): Spider subtype as follows:
tr = Transitional millisecond pulsar
ti = Tidarren
Note (4): The year of the publication where MSP status is confirmed (or as
spider candidate if no confirmed pulsations)
Note (5): Assuming i=90 deg and pulsar mass of 1.35 solar masses
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: refs.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 3 I3 --- Ref Reference code
5- 23 A19 --- BibCode BibCode
25- 46 A22 --- Aut Author's name
48- 79 A32 --- Com Comments
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 21 A21 --- Name Source name (1)
23- 35 A13 --- Fermi Fermi 4FGL source identifier
37- 40 F4.1 arcmin Fermisep ? Separation between the query and the
Fermi coordinates
42- 57 A16 --- XMM XMM-Newton 4XMM-DR13 source identifier
60- 63 F4.2 arcsec XMMsep ? Separation between the query and the
XMM-Newton coordinates
65- 70 A6 --- Swift Swift 2SXPS source identifier
72- 75 F4.1 arcsec Swiftsep ? Separation between the query and the
Swift coordinates
77- 92 A16 --- Chandra Chandra 2CXO source identifier
95- 98 F4.2 arcsec Chandrasep ? Separation between the query and the
Chandra coordinates
100-115 A16 --- eROSITA eROSITA 1eRASS source identifier
117-120 F4.1 arcsec eROSITAsep ? Separation between the query and the
eROSITA coordinates
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Note (1): Preceded by PSR if confirmed pulsar, otherwise the name used in the
discovery paper.
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table4.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 21 A21 --- Name Source name (1)
23- 41 A19 --- GaiaDR3 Gaia DR3 source identifier
43- 47 F5.2 arcsec GaiaDR3sep ? Separation between the query and the Gaia
coordinates
49- 66 A18 --- PanSTARRS Pan-STARRS PS1 source identifier
68- 72 F5.2 arcsec PanSTARRSsep ? Separation between the query and the
PanSTARRS coordinates
74- 91 A18 --- SkyMapper SkyMapper DR4 source identifier
93- 97 F5.2 arcsec SkyMappersep ? Separation between the query and the
SkyMapper coordinates
99-114 A16 --- 2MASS 2MASS source identifier
116-120 F5.2 --- 2MASSsep ? Separation between the query and the
2MASS coordinates
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Note (1): Preceded by PSR if confirmed pulsar, otherwise the name used in the
discovery paper
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table5.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 21 A21 --- Name Source name (1)
23- 27 F5.2 kpc d ? Source distance
29- 33 F5.2 kpc e_d ? Lower confidence level (16%) of the
source distance
35- 40 F6.2 kpc E_d ? Upper confidence level (84%) of the
source distance
42- 47 A6 --- dtype Method for determining the distance (2)
49- 54 F6.1 10-14mW.m-2 FX ? X-ray flux
56- 60 F5.1 10-14mW.m-2 e_FX ? X-ray flux error
62- 68 A7 --- DetX X-ray detector (3)
70- 75 F6.1 10+24W LX ? X-ray luminosity
77- 82 F6.1 10+24W e_LX ? Lower confidence level (16%) of the
X-ray luminosity
84- 90 F7.1 10+24W E_LX ? Upper confidence level (84%) of the
X-ray luminosity
92- 96 F5.1 10-12mW.m-2 Fgamma ? Gamma-ray flux (0.1-100 GeV)
98-101 F4.1 10-12mW.m-2 e_Fgamma ? Gamma-ray flux error
103-107 F5.1 10+26W Lgamma ? Gamma-ray luminosity (0.1-100 GeV)
109-113 F5.1 10+26W e_Lgamma ? Lower confidence level (16%) of the
gamma-ray luminosity
115-119 F5.1 10+26W E_Lgamma ? Upper confidence level (84%) of the
gamma-ray luminosity
121-126 F6.2 mag gmag ? Apparent magnitude in g-band filter (4)
128-133 F6.2 mag gMag ? Absolute magnitude in g-band filter (4)
135-140 F6.2 mag e_gMag []? Lower confidence level (16%) of the
absolute g-band magnitude (4)
142-147 F6.2 mag E_gMag []? Upper confidence level (84%) of the
absolute g-band magnitude (4)
149-153 F5.2 mag g-r ? (g-r) color (4)
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Note (1): Preceded by PSR if confirmed pulsar, otherwise the name used in the
discovery paper.
Note (2): We estimate distances to spiders using dispersion measure and the
Galactic electron density model of Yao et al. (2017ApJ...835...29Y 2017ApJ...835...29Y, YMW16),
or in some cases using the older model of Cordes & Lazio (2002,
0207156, NE2001). In cases where dispersion measure is not available
we use geometric distances derived from Gaia DR3 parallaxes. However, in
cases where the relative parallax uncertainty is less than 0.2, we always
adopt the parallax-based distance. In this column, we note the method used.
Note (3): X-ray detectors and energy bands used to obtain the X-ray fluxes.
XMM : EPIC onboard XMM-Newton (0.2-12keV),
Swift : XRT onboard Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (0.3-10keV),
Chandra : ACIS onboard Chandra X-ray Observatory (0.2-7keV),
eROSITA : eROSITA onboard Spektrum-Roentgen-Gamma (0.2-8keV)
Note (4): The magnitudes have been corrected for extinction.
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Acknowledgements:
Karri Koljonen, karri.koljonen(at)ntnu.no
References:
Ballet et al., 2023arXiv230712546B 2023arXiv230712546B,
Fermi Large Area Telescope Fourth Source Catalog Data Release 4 (4FGL-DR4)
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 04-Dec-2025