POSSIBILITY OF DETECTING MOONS OF PULSAR PLANETS THROUGH TIME-OF-ARRIVAL ANALYSIS

The perturbation caused by planet-moon binarity on the time-of-arrival signal of a pulsar with an orbiting planet is derived for the case in which the orbits of the moon and the planet-moon barycenter are both circular and coplanar. The signal consists of two sinusoids with frequency (2n(p)-3n(b)) and (2n(p)-n(b)), where n(p) and n(b) are the mean motions of the planet and moon around their barycenter, and the planet-moon system around the host, respectively. The amplitude of the signal is the fraction sin I [9(M(p) M(m))/16(M(p) + M(m))(2)][r/R](5) of the system crossing time R/c, where M(p) and M(m) are the masses of the planet and moon, r is their orbital separation, R is the distance between the host pulsar and planet-moon barycenter, I is the inclination of the orbital plane of the planet, and c is the speed of light. The analysis is applied to the case of PSR B1620-26b, a pulsar planet, to constrain the orbital separation and mass of any possible moons. We find that a stable moon orbiting this pulsar planet could be detected, if its mass were >5% of its planet's mass, and if the planet-moon distance were similar to 2% of the planet-pulsar separation.