2020RNAAS...4..223A

The Early Gaia Data Release 3 (EDR3) provides precise astrometry for nearly 1.5 billion sources across the entire sky. A few tens of these are associated with neutron stars in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds. Here, we report on a search for EDR3 counterparts to known rotation-powered pulsars using the method outlined in Antoniadis. A cross-correlation between EDR3 and the ATNF pulsar catalog identifies 41 close astrometric pairs (≲05 at the reference epoch of the pulsar position). Twenty six of these are related to previously known optical counterparts, while the rest are candidate pairs that require further follow-up. Highlights include the Crab Pulsar (PSR B0531+21), for which EDR3 yields a distance of ${2.08}_{-0.45}^{+0.78}$ kpc (or ${2.00}_{-0.38}^{+0.56}$ kpc taking into account the dispersion-measure prior; errors indicate 95% confidence limits) and PSR 1638-4608, a pulsar thus-far considered to be isolated that lies within 0056 of a Gaia source.