The population of black widow pulsars

Abstract

We consider the population of black widow pulsars (BWPs). The large majority of these are members of globular clusters. For minimum companion masses < 0.1 Msun, adiabatic evolution and consequent mass loss under gravitational radiation appear to provide a coherent explanation of all observable properties. We suggest that the group of BWPs with minimum companion masses > 0.1 Msun are systems relaxing to equilibrium after a relatively recent capture event. We point out that all binary millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with orbital periods P < 10 h are BWPs (our line of sight allows us to see the eclipses in 10 out of 16 cases). This implies that recycled MSPs emit either in a wide fan beam or a pencil beam close to the spin plane. Simple evolutionary ideas favour a fan beam.

arXiv commentMNRAS accepted

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• The light curve of the companion to PSR B1957+20
• Population synthesis of ultracompact X-ray binaries in the Galactic Bulge
• Radio Detection of the Fermi LAT Blind Search Millisecond Pulsar J1311-3430
• Six New Recycled Globular Cluster Pulsars Discovered with the Green Bank Telescope
• Disks and Planets Around Massive White Dwarfs
• A Fallback Disk Accretion-Involved Formation Channel to PSR J1903+0327
• An evolutionary channel towards the accreting millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658
• Accretion, Ablation and Propeller Evolution in Close Millisecond Pulsar Binary Systems
• Millisecond pulsars phenomenology under the light of graph theory