Observatoire de Paris Institut national de recherche scientifique français Univerité Pierre et Marie Curie Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7

The Formation and Evolution of Millisecond Pulsars

lundi 25 mai 2009, par Jason Hessels (ASTRON / UniversitĂ© d’Amsterdam)

Jeudi 28 mai 2009 à 14h15 , Lieu : Salle de confĂ©rence du bât. 17

Millisecond pulsars are neutron stars that spin hundreds of times a second. Their fantastic rotation rates are commonly believed to be the result of an accretion phase in which an old neutron star accretes both matter and angular momentum from a binary companion, and is "recycled" to become a radio pulsar once again - now spinning much faster than before and with a significantly reduced magnetic field strength. I will discuss our current understanding of radio millisecond pulsars, focusing primarily on those that are found in Galactic globular clusters, but also discussing those objects found in the field.