New Advances Made in Black Widow Pulsar Research

Spider pulsars typically refer to millisecond pulsars that form binary systems with low-mass companion stars in the later stage of their evolution. These Spider pulsars are classified into "black widow" (BW) and "red back" (RB).

Recently, China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), also known as the "Eye of Heaven", has conducted numerous observations of such sources with its extremely high sensitivity. It has particularly revealed detailed features of periodic occultations involving a group of Black Window pulsars.