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Pulsars & Millisecond Pulsars: Structures & Vocabulary

Pulsars are rotating neutron stars whose beams of electromagnetic radiation sweep across Earth like lighthouse beams, producing extraordinarily regular pulses. Pulsar timing tests general relativity, detects binary companions, measures interstellar plasma, constrains neutron-star interiors, and enables pulsar-timing arrays to search for nanohertz gravitational waves.

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Pulsars & Millisecond Pulsars: Structures & Vocabulary

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AST-416Pulsars & Millisecond Pulsars: Foundations→

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AST-418Pulsars & Millisecond Pulsars: Physical Mechanisms→

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Pulsars are rotating neutron stars whose beams of electromagnetic radiation sweep across Earth like lighthouse beams, producing extraordinarily regular pulses.

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Conservation of angular momentum makes a collapsed stellar core rotate rapidly, while magnetic flux compression greatly strengthens the field.

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