Discovery of High-Energy Gamma-Ray Pulsations from PSR J2021+3651 with AGILE

Discovered after the end of the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory mission, the radio pulsar PSR J2021+3651 was long considered a likely counterpart of the high-energy γ-ray source 2CG 075+00 = 3EG J2021+3716 = GeV J2020+3658, but it could not be confirmed due to the lack of a contemporaneous radio pulsar ephemeris to fold the sparse, archival γ-ray photons. Here, we report the discovery of γ-ray pulsations from PSR J2021+3651 in the 100-1500 MeV range using data from the AGILE satellite gathered over 8 months, folded on a densely sampled, contemporaneous radio ephemeris obtained for this purpose at the Green Bank Telescope. The γ-ray pulse consists of two sharp peaks separated by 0.47 ± 0.01 cycles. The single radio pulse leads the first γ-ray peak by 0.165 ± 0.010 cycles. These properties are similar to those of other γ-ray pulsars, and the phase relationship of the peaks can be interpreted in the context of the outer-gap accelerator model for γ-ray emission. Pulse-phase-resolved images show that there is only one dominant source, AGL J2020.5+3653 = PSR J2021+3651, in the region previously containing confused sources 3EG J2021+3716 and 3EG J2016+3657.