Love Bites: The Deadly Romance of Spider Pulsars

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• Prof. Rene Breton (University of Manchester)
• Tuesday 17 June 2025, 11:15-12:00
• Martin Ryle Seminar Room, Kavli Institute.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Charles Walker.

Pulsars in binary systems are fantastic physics laboratories, primarily because their orbital dynamics allow us to probe binary evolution, test gravity theories, measure neutron star masses, etc. Among them are the “black widows” and “redbacks”, which are nicknamed after the deadly arachnids because the millisecond pulsar they contain gradually destroys their low mass companion. The strongly irradiated dayside displayed by the low-mass companions in these systems is reminiscent of what is observed in exoplanets called “hot jupiters”. In the last decade, the number of known spiders has grown exponentially to the point of becoming the most prevalent type of fast rotating binary pulsars. In this talk, I will present some of the recent efforts undertaken with the MeerKAT telescope to uncover these pulsars and review some of the key advances they have provided for our understanding of binary evolution, stellar physics under extreme irradiation, and measurement of neutron star masses.

This talk is part of the Hills Coffee Talks series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Cavendish Laboratory Seminars
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cambridge Astronomy Talks
• Cavendish Astrophysics Seminars
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Combined External Astrophysics Talks DAMTP
• Cosmology, Astrophysics and General Relativity
• Featured lists
• Hills Coffee Talks
• ME Seminar
• Martin Ryle Seminar Room, Kavli Institute
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• School of Physical Sciences
• Thin Film Magnetic Talks

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