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The first eclipsing binary pulsar, PSR B1957+20, was discovered in 1987. Since then, 13 other eclipsing low-mass binary pulsars have been found, 12 of these are in globular clusters. In this paper we list the known eclipsing binary pulsars…
This chapter for the new CUP book "Compact Stellar Sources" reviews the state of work on multi-wavelength observations of high mass and low mass X-ray binaries. Both neutron star and black hole systems are considered for this work.
The formation of massive stars is one of the major unsolved problems in stellar astrophysics. However, only few if any of these are found as single stars, on average massive stars have more than one companion. Many of them are born in dense…
Observations by the current generation of gravitational-wave detectors have been pivotal in expanding our understanding of the universe. Although tens of exciting compact binary mergers have been observed, neutron star-black hole (NSBH)…
Binary stars are dynamical systems formed by two stars that are physically bound by the gravitational force. Binary stars are privileged laboratories, allowing one to measure the fundamental properties of stars but also potentially changing…
X-ray spectral analysis of quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) has been one of the most common tools to measure the radius of neutron stars (NSs) for over a decade. So far, this method has been mainly applied to NSs in globular…
Quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries (qLMXBs) containing neutron stars have been identified in several globular clusters using Chandra or XMM X-ray observations, using their soft thermal spectra. We report a complete census of the qLMXB…
Binary stars play a major role in determining the dynamic evolution of star clusters. We used images collected with the Hubble Space Telescope to study fourteen Magellanic Clouds star clusters that span an age interval between $\sim 0.6$…
An understanding of spin frequency ($\nu$) evolution of neutron stars in the low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) phase is essential to explain the observed $\nu$-distribution of millisecond pulsars (MSPs), and to probe the stellar and binary…
Around the turn of the last century, star clusters of all kinds were considered "simple" stellar populations. Over the past decade, this situation has changed dramatically. At the same time, star clusters are among the brightest stellar…
Fifty years ago, borrowing an idea from our Russian friends Guseinov and Zeldovich, we looked for very compact stars (neutron stars and black holes, in modern terminology) as optically-invisible components of single-line spectroscopic…
Microlensing is one of the most promising methods of reconstructing the stellar mass function down to masses even below the hydrogen-burning limit. The fundamental limit to this technique is the presence of unresolved binaries, which can in…
Rapidly spinning neutron stars are promising sources of persistent, continuous gravitational waves. Detecting such a signal would allow probing of the physical properties of matter under extreme conditions. A significant fraction of the…
Close-binary central stars of planetary nebulae offer a unique tool with which to study the critical and yet poorly understood common-envelope phase of binary stellar evolution. Furthermore, as the nebula itself is thought to comprise the…
The advent of moderately high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy with Chandra and XMM promised to usher in a new age in the study of neutron stars: we thought we would study neutron stars like stars, with resolved absorption spectra revealing…
Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), which occur in old stellar populations, have velocities exceeding those of their parent distribution by at least 20 km/s. This makes them ideal probes for dark matter, in particular in dwarf spheroidals…
It has been known for over 30 years that Galactic globular clusters (GCs) are overabundant by orders of magnitude in bright X-ray sources per unit mass relative to the disk population. Recently a quantitative understanding of this…
In this review I briefly describe the nature of the three kinds of High-Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs), accreting through: (i) Be circumstellar disc, (ii) supergiant stellar wind, and (iii) Roche lobe filling supergiants. A previously unknown…
If binaries consisting of two 100 Msun black holes exist they would serve as extraordinarily powerful gravitational-wave sources, detectable to redshifts of z=2 with the advanced LIGO/Virgo ground-based detectors. Large uncertainties about…
Black holes in binary star systems are vital for understanding the process of pr oducing gravitational wave sources, understanding how supernovae work, and for p roviding fossil evidence for the high mass stars from earlier in the Universe.…