Neutron Stars and Black Holes - Lecture 11: Millisecond Pulsars

Explore the fascinating world of millisecond pulsars in this comprehensive lecture from the "Neutron Stars and Black Holes" summer course. Delve into the discovery and characteristics of these rapidly rotating neutron stars, their evolution from normal pulsars, and the process of "recycling" in binary systems. Examine the Eddington luminosity limit, equilibrium periods, and the population of millisecond pulsars. Investigate their connections to gravitational waves, atomic clocks, and their potential as gravitational wave detectors. Learn about key predictions, puzzles, and breakthroughs in the field, including the detection of gamma-ray millisecond pulsars. Gain insights into the importance of these celestial objects for understanding stellar evolution, binary systems, and fundamental physics.

Time: AM
Neutron Stars and Black Holes Lecture - 11: Millisecond Pulsars
Millisecond Pulsars
The First Millisecond Pulsar
The dog that did not bark!
But there was absolutely no nebulosity in radio or optical or x-ray!
Curious coincidence once again!
A bold conjecture!
Evolution of Pulsars
Recycled Pulsars
Reincarnation of the first-born neutron star
Spinning up a Neutron Star in a Binary System
Massive Binary
Spinning up a neutron star
What will be its period after the spin up phase is over?
The Equilibrium Period
Accretion disk
PSR 1913+16 must be a recycled pulsar
Question: For a given magnetic field, can we spin up a neutron star to arbitrarily small period?
Eddington Luminosity Limit
Thompson scattering cross section:
Eddington Limit for the Accretion Rate
The Minimum Equilibrium Period
Recycled Pulsars
The Millisecond Pulsar
The Progenitors of Millisecond Pulsars
But where is the Companion
The second Millisecond Pulsar
The Population of ms-Pulsars
The Moral of Millisecond Pulsars
"The trumpets shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible"
Prediction: Millisecond pulsars are for ever!
Predictions made in 1986
Thirty years later
The missing companion of the solitary millisecond pulsar
The ungrateful recycled pulsar!
Yet Another Puzzle of the 1980s
COS-B map of the galactic plane
The Puzzle
Is There a Puzzle?
Diffuse Gamma-rays: Latitude ProfileHunter et al 1997
A Prediction made in 1988
Twenty one years after this prediction was made. ...
14 August, 2009
"A population of Gamma-Ray Millisecond Pulsars Seen with the Fermi Large Area Telescope"
Millisecond Pulsars and Gravitational Waves
Gravitational radiation from ms-PSRs
2000: X-ray binary & 2009: radio millisecond pulsar
PSR J1023+0038 - The missing link
Atomic Clocks and Millisecond Pulsars
PSR 1937+21
ms-PSRs and Atomic Clocks
Millisecond Pulsars as Gravitational Wave Detectors
Pulsar Timing Array
Next Lecture - Black Holes
Q&A