Special Astrophysics Seminar

Self-Induced Irradiation Cycles in Neutron Star Binaries

Lorne Nelson

Bishop's University

I will briefly describe some of the evolutionary pathways that lead to the formation of recycled pulsars and, in particular, binary millisecond pulsars (BMSPs). Thanks to the enormous advances made in pulsar astronomy, we are discovering new sub-populations of BMSPs such as ‘redbacks’ and extremely massive neutron stars (>~2 Msun). The latter allows us to rule out certain exotic equations of state at nuclear densities. In this talk, I will show that the effects of self-induced X-ray irradiation (X-ray feedback) cannot be neglected when evolving BMSPs and that this phenomenon has an important role to play in determining the final masses of the neutron star components. It also naturally produces ‘limit cycles’ and these cycles may help explain the transitions that have been recently observed between the radio pulsar state and the X-ray binary state.