Spider Invasion Across the Galaxy
The nature of the exotic stellar corpses which reincarnate by consuming their companion is reviewed. Apart from sucking life from their partners, they are actually eating the doomed companions away by their deadly and powerful particle/radiation beams. Such situation resembles that a female “black...
| Published in: | Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
The Korean Space Science Society
2014-06-01
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://ocean.kisti.re.kr/downfile/volume/kosss/OJOOBS/2014/v31n2/OJOOBS_2014_v31n2_101.pdf |
| Summary: | The nature of the exotic stellar corpses which reincarnate by consuming their companion is reviewed. Apart from sucking life
from their partners, they are actually eating the doomed companions away by their deadly and powerful particle/radiation
beams. Such situation resembles that a female “black widow” spider that eats its mate after mating. These celestial zombies
are called - Millisecond pulsars (MSPs). In this review article, I will focus on the effort of Fermi Asian Network (FAN) in
exploring these intricating objects over the last five years. Two special classes of MSPs are particularly striking. Since Fermi
Gamma-ray Space Telescope has started surveying the gamma−ray sky, the population of “black widows” has been boosted.
Another dramatic class is so-called “redbacks” (Australian cousin of “black widows”) which has just emerged in the last few
years. These MSPs provide us with a long-sought missing link in understanding the transition between accretion-powered
and rotation-powered systems. The strategy of hunting MSPs through mulitwavelength observations of the unidentified Fermi
objects is also reviewed. |
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| ISSN: | 2093-5587 2093-1409 |