BN3 - Double Neutron Stars and Neutron Star-White Dwarf Binaries |
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Speaker |
Breton, Rene |
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Coauthors |
Dhillon, Vikram S.; Roberts, Mallory S. E.; van Kerkwijk, M. H |
| Talk Title |
On Spiders and Binary Pulsars |
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Abstract |
In recent years, the fastest growing class of binary pulsars is that containing an energetic millisecond pulsar strongly irradiating a light, semi-degenerate companion orbiting at close proximity from its host. Dubbed ‘spiders’ because of the cannibalistic behaviour of these pulsar, they in fact subdivide into two sub-classes: ‘black widows’ and ‘redbacks’, which appear to differ only by the mass of the companion — the former being a few 0.01Msun while the latter are ~0.2Msun. Among other things these binaries prove to be good for measuring pulsar masses. The few measurements obtained so far indicate that they likely constitute a rather massive sub-population of neutron stars. In this talk, I will discuss highlight recent mass measurements as well as notable behaviours, such as ‘spotty’ companion surfaces and secular flux changes. |
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Talk view |
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