Luciano Burderi (Univ. of Palermo, Italy)

Unveiling the nature of timing noise in accreting millisecond pulsar with LOFT.

Most of the accreting millisecond pulsar show significant timing noise which hampers the use 
of this powerful technique to firmly asses the disc/neutron star angular momentum exchange 
during accretion. The physical origin of this noise is not clear, and several theoretical 
models have been proposed up to date. In this talk I discuss how a large area and high 
time-resolution instrument like the LAD on board of LOFT could allow to distinguish - by means 
of different experimental signatures - between the proposed timing noise models, thus allowing a
deeper understanding of the angular momentum exchanges between the accretion flow and the compact object.