Photonics Research Institute and Department of Electronic and Information Engineering co-organized a seminar with the topic of “Searching compact binaries using space-based photometric observations”. The seminar was successfully held on 24 February 2022 at 10 a.m. (Hong Kong Time) via Zoom. It was honor to invite Prof. Pak Hin (Thomas) Tam, Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Sun Yat-Sen University in Mainland China, to be the keynote speaker in the seminar.
ABSTRACT
The mass and orbital distribution of existing black holes and neutron stars in binaries can have important implications on binary massive stellar evolution, shedding light on gravitational wave astronomy. However, the known number of compact objects in binaries is orders of magnitude less than those predicted. Traditional ways to look for black holes (e.g., in X-ray binaries) are biased against wide binaries, and possibly mass-gap black holes. Recent studies employing radial velocity searches and optical photometry have started to reveal such systems less probed before. In recent years, exoplanet-search satellites such as Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have opened an era of high-precision photometry of a large number of stars. I demonstrate that TESS photometric data do contain periodicity signals of known pulsar-like systems, by observing the orbital period-modulated flux variation from the stellar companion. We have also made an estimate of searchable black hole binaries (~a few) in the field of Kepler. In the end of the talk, I will introduce the CSST Big Bay Area Science Center and the upcoming funding opportunities.
