Black Widow Evolution

by Dr. Sivan Ginzburg

Uc Berkeley

at Astrophysics and Cosmology Seminar

Wed, 10 Jun 2020, 10:00
Sacta-Rashi Building for Physics (54), room 207

Abstract

Black widows are millisecond pulsars with low-mass companions (~2% the mass of the sun) on short orbits of several hours. When the first black widow was discovered in 1988, it was proposed that its companion is the remnant of a main sequence star that had been evaporated by the pulsar’s high energy radiation. I will present new observations from the last decade that challenge this picture, and discuss how the growing population of black widows can be explained consistently.

Created on 05-06-2020 by Zitrin, Adi (zitrin)
Updaded on 05-06-2020 by Zitrin, Adi (zitrin)