20–28 Mar 2025
Emperors Palace Hotel Casino Convention Resort
Africa/Johannesburg timezone

The Effect of Intrabinary Shock Geometry on Spider Binary Spectra and Light Curves

25 Mar 2025, 12:00
15m
Emperors Palace Hotel Casino Convention Resort

Emperors Palace Hotel Casino Convention Resort

64 Jones Rd, Kempton Park, Johannesburg, 1620
Talk Transients, Compact Objects Science

Speaker

Prof. Christo Venter (North-West University)

Description

Black widow and redback compact binaries are collectively known as ‘spider’ binary systems in which a millisecond pulsar heats and ablates its low-mass companion via its intense pulsar wind. They are an important type of pulsar system differentiated by their companion’s mass and nature. These systems manifest a rich empirical phenomenology, including radio eclipses, optical light curves from a heated companion, as well as non-thermal X-ray and GeV orbital light curves and spectra. Multi-wavelength observations have now established the presence of relativistic leptons that have been accelerated in the pulsar magnetosphere and near the intrabinary shock, as well as a hot companion, presenting an ideal environment for the creation of orbitally-modulated inverse
Compton fluxes that should be within reach of current and future Cherenkov telescopes. We have included an updated synchrotron kernel, different parametric injection spectral shapes, and several intrabinary shock geometries in our emission code to improve our predictions
of the expected TeV signatures from spider binaries. Our updated model outputs may constrain particle energetics, wind properties, shock geometry, and system inclination of several spider binaries.

Stream Science

Primary author

Prof. Christo Venter (North-West University)

Co-authors

Dr Andreas Kopp (North-West University) Dr Zorawar Wadiasingh (Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA) Dr Matthew Baring (Department of Physics and Astronomy - MS 108, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77251-1892, USA) Dr Alice Harding (Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA)

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