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Scott Ransom McGill Binary pulsars are some of the most fascinating and useful objects that have been discovered in our Galaxy. Out of almost 1500 known pulsars, less than 100 are in binaries. Yet these systems have provided a disproportionately large percentage of the pulsar scientific dividend -- including the Nobel Prize winning discovery of a system losing energy due to gravitational wave emission. Unfortunately, relativistic binary pulsars are extremely difficult to detect. I have been working on several techniques to improve this situation and allow the efficient detection of truly exotic binary pulsars -- such as neutron star - black hole systems and systems with orbits as short as 10-15 minutes.
Wednesday, November 7th 2001, 12:30 |