Description
Chair: Palli Jakobsson
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Manuel Linares27/05/2026, 13:15Oral
In 2021, I established a new ERC-funded research group on neutron star astrophysics in Trondheim, Norway. Our main focus has been on compact binary millisecond pulsars: a growing class of Galactic neutron stars nicknamed "spiders". Only one spider pulsar was known in 1990 when the Uppsala Nordic-Baltic conference took place (the original "black widow") and only four were known in 2008 when...
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Karri Koljonen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)27/05/2026, 13:30Oral
Compact binary millisecond pulsars, commonly known as "spiders", are fast‑spinning neutron stars locked in tight orbits that gradually strip their low‑mass companions. These extreme systems are powerful probes of pulsar evolution and key to measuring the most massive neutron stars, providing vital constraints on the physics of ultra‑dense matter. The surge in discoveries since the launch of...
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Jordan Simpson (NTNU)27/05/2026, 13:45Oral
Compact binary millisecond pulsars, or 'spiders', consist of rapidly-spinning neutron stars spun up by a sustained accretion phase. As such, they are predicted to harbour the most massive neutron stars. These super-massive compact objects are paramount to finding the maximum neutron star mass, which has profound ramifications across many fields, such as gravitational wave astronomy, nuclear...
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Joonas Nättilä (University of Helsinki)27/05/2026, 14:00Oral
Radiative plasma processes in neutron-star magnetospheres play a central role in shaping radio pulsar emission and high-energy variability. In particular, magnetospheric gaps—regions of unscreened electric field near pulsar polar caps—provide natural sites for extreme particle acceleration, radiation, and electron–positron pair creation. These gaps are believed to be key to triggering pair...
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Ville-Vertti Linho (University of Helsinki)27/05/2026, 14:15Oral
Radio-wave emissions originating from pulsar plasmas have been investigated for
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decades. Still, there exists a mismatch between the observations and theory. On top of the
polar gap of a neutron star, a plasma cloud is created due to the pair-production process.
Due to the short synchrotron radiation time, only parallel currents, with respect to the
background magnetic field, are present in...