2025RAA....25a4002Y

Binary millisecond pulsars with a massive white dwarf (WD) companion are intermediate-mass binary pulsars (IMBPs). They are formed via the Case BB Roche-lobe overflow evolution channel if they are in compact orbits with an orbital period of less than 1 day. They are fairly rare in the known pulsar population; only five such IMBPs have been discovered before, and one of them is in a globular cluster. Here we report six IMBPs in compact orbits: PSRs J0416+5201, J0520+3722, J1919+1341, J1943+2210, J1947+2304 and J2023+2853, discovered during the Galactic Plane Pulsar Snapshot survey by using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope, doubling the number of such IMBPs due to the high survey sensitivity in the short survey time of 5 minutes. Follow-up timing observations show that they all have either a CO WD or an ONeMg WD companion with a mass greater than about 0.8 M_⊙ in a very circular orbit with an eccentricity in the order of ≲10^–5. PSR J0416+5201 should be an ONeMg WD companion with a remarkable minimum mass of 1.28 M_⊙. These massive WD companions lead to a detectable Shapiro delay for PSRs J0416+5201, J0520+3722, J1943+2210, and J2023+2853, indicating that their orbits are highly inclined. From the measurement of the Shapiro delay, the pulsar mass of J1943+2210 was constrained to be 1.84${}_{-0.09}^{\,+0.11}$M_⊙, and that of PSR J2023+2853 to be 1.28${}_{-0.05}^{\,+0.06}$M_⊙.