Speaker
Level for award<br> (Hons, MSc, <br> PhD)?
MSc
Apply to be<br> considered for a student <br> award (Yes / No)?
Yes
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?
No
Main supervisor (name and email)<br>and his / her institution
Fabio Frescura Fabio.Frescura@wits.ac.za
Abstract content <br> (Max 300 words)
Binary Pulsars have been identified as important laboratories for the study of gravitational physics. In particular, binary systems comprising a pulsar and a black-hole present a scenario for the study of physics in the strong gravitational field regime. We use a numerical simulation to predict the arrival times and relative fluxes from a pulsar in a binary system. We use numerical methods to solve the set of four coupled, second order ODEs describing the general relativistic motion of a photon in the Kerr space-time. Pulsar emission has been modelled by generating the necessary initial conditions for a large number of photons in a conical configuration. A sufficiently large number of these 'photon cones' are then used to describe a simple 'lighthouse-like' scenario, whereby the pulsar emits two conical beams in the plane of rotation. We evaluate an idealised case of a pulsar in a stable circular orbit around a significantly more massive black-hole, with the plane of rotation for the pulsar in the equatorial plane of the black-hole. In particular, we examine the superior and inferior conjunctions, with the hope of elucidating the theoretical behavior of a pulsar signal as seen by a distant observer.
