2021MNRAS.500.1592G

Black widows are millisecond pulsars with low-mass companions, a few per cent the mass of the sun, on orbits of several hours. These companions are presumably the remnants of main-sequence stars that lost their mass through a combination of Roche lobe overflow and ablation by the host pulsar's high-energy radiation. While ablation itself is too weak to significantly reduce the mass of the companion star, the ablated wind couples to its magnetic field, removes orbital angular momentum, and thus maintains stable Roche lobe overflow. We use the MESA stellar evolution code, complemented by analytical estimates, to track initially main-sequence companions as they are reduced to a fraction of their original mass by this ablation-driven magnetic braking. We argue that magnetic braking remains effective even for low-mass companions. A key ingredient of our model is that the irradiating luminosity of the pulsar L_irr deposits energy in the companion's atmosphere and thereby slows down its Kelvin-Helmholtz cooling. We find that the high-energy luminosities measured by FermiL_irr=0.1 -3 L_☉ can explain the span of black widow orbital periods. The same L_irr range reproduces the companions' night-side temperatures, which cluster around 3000 K, as inferred from optical light curves.