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Millisecond Pulsars Millisecond pulsar Millisecond pulsars (MSPs), often referred to as "recycled pulsars", are neutron stars that have been spun-up to spin hundreds of times a second by the transfer of angular momentum by a companion star that has overflown its Roche lobe. The first millisecond pulsar, PSR B1937+21, was discovered in 1982 by Backer et al. Spinning roughly 641 times a second, it remains the fastest-spinning neutron star known, despite concerted efforts to discover a faster spinning pulsar. Theoretical calculations suggest a physical upper limit of about 1000 rotations per second for neutron stars. Many millisecond pulsars are found in globular clusters because the extremely high stellar density of these systems leads to exchange interactions that create the kind of mass-transfer binaries that spin pulsars up to millisecond pulsars. Currently there are approximately 80 millisecond pulsars known in globular clusters. Some globular clusters contain as many as 20 millisecond pulsars.
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