LOVE-NEST – LOVE-NEST

Modes in Transitional Millisecond Pulsars: Evidence of Pulsar Wind-Induced Disk Heating from GRMHD and Radiative Transfer

News, OutreachBy Raphaël Mignon-Risse October 14, 2026

Transitional millisecond pulsars (tMSPs) alternate between radio and X-ray pulsar states, and can represent the missing link between rotation- and accretion-powered neutron stars. Their disk state switches stochastically between the low and high X-ray modes, both of unknown physical origin and less luminous than low-mass X-ray binaries. To reveal the source of the X-ray emission,…

Animation of phenomena (physical effects) and models

OutreachBy Maksat Satybaldiev September 29, 2026

Disclaimer ! Made by Maksat Satybaldiev, built entirely with Claude Code. Inspired by: singularity.misterprada.com NASA SVS 11567 NASA SVS 11215 It represents the phenomena (physical effects) and models from the following works: Satybaldiev & Linares 2026 Satybaldiev, Linares, Vecchiotti 2026 Baglio et al. 2023 Turchetta et al. 2023 Papitto et al. 2019 Veledina et al.…

An Irradiated Redback and a Possible Double Giant Impostor

Articles, NewsBy Bettina Due September 16, 2026

Compact binary millisecond pulsars (nicknamed “spiders”) are a growing class of neutron stars: more than 100 systems are known in the Galactic field, including more than 30 candidates where pulsations have not been detected. Here we report the results of an optical follow-up of two spider pulsar candidates: 2FGL J0846.0+2820 and 4FGL J0935.3+0901

DR. MARCO: New PhD thesis defended in the group!

NewsBy LOVE-NEST January 26, 2026

On January 14th, 2026, Marco Turchetta successfully defended his PhD thesis at NTNU! Thesis title: “Hunting Spider Millisecond Pulsars in the Optical Sky” Trial lecture: “Supernovae” Main supervisor: Manuel Linares Co-supervisor: Karri Koljonen Many thanks to both opponents in the committee (Nathalie Degenaar and Teo Muñoz-Darias) for coming to Trondheim, and for their questions and comments.…

Gamma-ray orbital modulation in spider pulsars

Articles, NewsBy Maksat Satybaldiev January 13, 2026

Spider pulsars are known to exhibit orbital modulation of their flux across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to X-rays. Over the past decade, gamma-ray orbital modulation (GOM) has been discovered in a handful of spiders, but its origin remains largely unknown. Because GOM is very subtle, its detection requires high photon statistics and precise…

COBIPLANE: The discovery of five new spider pulsars

Articles, NewsBy Marco Turchetta January 13, 2026

Compact binary millisecond pulsars, also known as “spiders”, host the most massive neutron stars ever observed to date. Expanding the currently known spider population holds the key to determining the maximum neutron star mass, which has crucial implications for astrophysics, nuclear physics and gravitational wave astronomy. Searching for the variable optical emission of their companions can reveal a radio-obscured population of spiders. In the linked article, we present the results of our COmpact BInary Pulsar…

Charting the Galactic Spider Population with SpiderCat

Articles, NewsBy Karri Iiro Iisakki Koljonen September 25, 2025

We have compiled SpiderCat—the first comprehensive catalog of all publicly known spiders in the Galactic field. The catalog brings together radio timing data and multi-wavelength properties for every known system, currently encompassing 111 spiders and candidates across the main subclasses of redbacks and black widows, as well as rarer types such as transitional, huntsman, and…

The spiders that eat stars, and the scientists who catch them

OutreachBy LOVE-NEST September 25, 2025

Spiders can eat their partner. Some of the most extreme stars can do that too. We are pleased to announce SpiderCat, a public database hosted at NTNU gathering all the known Galactic-field spider pulsars in one place. Read the full story by Steinar Brandslet on Norwegian SciTech News.

Protons, neutrinos and gamma-rays in spider pulsar systems

Articles, NewsBy Vittoria Vecchiotti September 5, 2025

In recent years, the LHAASO detector has opened a new window to the very and ultra-high energy Galactic gamma-ray sky, revealing numerous sources capable of emitting in this energy range. However, most of these sources remain unidentified. At the same time, the IceCube detector has finally established the existence of a Galactic neutrino signal, which…

The slowest spinning Galactic-field spider PSR J1932+2121: A history of inefficient mass transfer

Articles, NewsBy Devina Misra May 23, 2025

Spiders are eclipsing millisecond pulsar binaries in which the pulsar ablates its low-mass companion; they are classified as black widows or redbacks based on companion mass. PSR J1932+2121 is a recently discovered Galactic-field redback millisecond pulsar (MSP) with a spin period of 14.2 ms, significantly slower than other known redbacks, and an unusually high surface…

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