Abstract

Invited Talk - Splinter SKA

Tuesday, 08 September 2026, 15:06   (MW-1050)

Binary pulsar science in the SKA Era

Dr. Vivek Venkatraman Krishnan on behalf of the SKA Binary Pulsar Science Working Group
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy

Binary systems with radio pulsars are some of the most useful natural laboratories in space. Even in the era of routine gravitational wave detections from merging neutron stars and black holes, binary pulsar experiments constitute a unique place by providing some of the most definite and complementary constraints for understanding gravity and nuclear physics. They routinely provide precise neutron star mass measurements that constrain their internal composition, contribute to the understanding of binary evolution of degenerate stars, and perform stringent tests of theories of gravity. The importance of binary pulsar experiments are corroborated by the fact that they have always been one of the flagship science cases of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) telescope. In this talk, I will start with outlining the range of experiments that can be conducted with binary pulsars, especially in the regime of mass measurements and testing theories of gravity. I will then share some recent binary pulsar science highlights and provide my perspective of how best to use SKA to extract the maximum science in this field.