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"Parsec-Scale Shocks Produced by Powerful Jets from Neutron Star and Stellar-Mass Black Hole Binaries"
Dr. Paul Sell
University of Crete, Greece

When:  Wednesday, 26 October 2016 at 2:00pm
Where: 2nd Floor Seminar Room

I present case studies of two prominent, X-ray-bright binary systems, one with a black hole (Cygnus X-1)
and one with a neutron star (Circinus X-1). These two systems are part of a subclass of X-ray binaries
with powerful radio jets.  The jets in these systems can inject enormous amounts of luminous and 
non-luminous mechanical energy into the interstellar medium many light years from the binaries.  
The primary goal of this work is to calculate how much energy is injected into the interstellar medium 
and how efficiently these jets can convert accretion energy into outflow energy.  The most exciting 
result of this work is the serendipitous discovery of the supernova remnant of Circinus X-1 in the X-ray
observation and follow-up radio observation.  This discovery has important implications for understanding
the evolution of binary systems and likely explains the unusual behavior of Circinus X-1 that had been 
a mystery for decades.

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