Related papers: Transitional millisecond pulsars
The X-ray and gamma-ray spectrum of rotation-powered millisecond pulsars is investigated in a model for acceleration and pair cascades on open field lines above the polar caps. Although these pulsars have low surface magnetic fields, their…
PSR J1744-3922 is a binary pulsar exhibiting highly variable pulsed radio emission. We report on a statistical multi-frequency study of the pulsed radio flux variability which suggests that this phenomenon is extrinsic to the pulsar and…
We present the discovery of IGR J18245-2452, the first millisecond pulsar observed to swing between a rotation-powered, radio pulsar state, and an accretion-powered X-ray pulsar state (Papitto et al. 2013, Nature, 501, 517). This…
Pulsars are neutron stars that rotate rapidly. Most of the pulsars in binary systems tend to spin faster than those in isolation. According to binary evolution theory, radio pulsars in binary systems can have various types of companion…
At present three pulsars are known which clearly show a strongly increasing degree of circular polarization with frequency. As this is accompanied by a smooth decrease of linear polarization, we investigate, if this observation can be…
The first millisecond X-ray variability phenomena from accreting compact objects have recently been discovered with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. Three new phenomena are observed from low-mass X-ray binaries containing low-magnetic-field…
We have monitored a large sample of millisecond pulsars using the 100-m Effelsberg radio telescope in order to compare their radio emission properties to the slowly rotating population. With some notable exceptions, our findings suggest…
I discuss methods and current software packages for radio searches for pulsars and short-duration transients. I then describe the properties of the current pulsar population and the status of and predictions for ongoing and future surveys.…
We present a systematic study of the evolution of intermediate- and low-mass X-ray binaries consisting of an accreting neutron star of mass $1.0-1.8 M_{\odot}$ and a donor star of mass $1.0-6.0 M_{\odot}$. In our calculations we take into…
We review the properties and applications of binary and millisecond pulsars. Our knowledge of these exciting objects has greatly increased in recent years, mainly due to successful surveys which have brought the known pulsar population to…
In the last 20 years our understanding of the millisecond pulsar (MSP) population changed dramatically. Thanks to RXTE, we discovered that neutron stars in LMXBs spins at 200-750 Hz frequencies, and indirectly confirmed the recycling…
We report the most recent progress in understanding the emission properties of millisecond pulsars.
Close to 70 radio pulsars have now been discovered in 23 globular clusters, with a record 22 pulsars observed in 47 Tuc alone. Accurate timing solutions, including positions in the cluster, are known for many of the pulsars. These recent…
Millisecond pulsars are old, fast spinning neutron stars thought to have evolved from classical pulsars in binary systems, where the rapid rotation is caused by the accretion of matter and angular momentum from their companion. During this…
Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are the oldest but fastest pulsars known to date. In the 1980s, to explain how these pulsars could be formed, a new hypothesis was formulated: the recycling of pulsars, i.e the fact that a pulsar could accrete…
The discovery and characteristics of transneptunian binaries are reviewed. In the 20 years since their first discovery, a wealth of detail has emerged including the frequency of binaries in different populations, their relative sizes and…
Despite considerable evidence verifying that millisecond pulsars are spun up through sustained accretion in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), it has proven surprisingly difficult to actually detect millisecond X-ray pulsars in LMXBs. There…
Millisecond X-ray pulsars consist of a rapidly-spinning neutron star accreting from a low-mass stellar companion, and are the long-sought evolutionary progenitors of millisecond radio pulsars, as well as promising candidate sources for…
The recent discovery of a population of eccentric (e ~ 0.1) millisecond pulsar (MSP) binaries with low-mass white dwarf companions in the Galactic field represents a challenge to evolutionary models that explain MSP formation as recycling:…
This thesis focuses on the study of binary radio pulsars, their evolution and some specific use of their properties to investigate fundamental physics such as general relativity and other gravitational theories. The work that we present…