Abstract
We report here on the orbital evolution of the accreting millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658. In particular, we find for this source the first estimate of the orbital period derivative in an accreting millisecond pulsar, dot{P}orb = (3.40+/-0.12)×10-12 s/s, and a refined estimate of the orbital period, Porb = 7249.156499+/-(1.2×10-5) s. This derivative is positive and is more than one order of magnitude higher than what is expected from secular evolution driven by angular momentum losses caused by gravitational radiation under the hypothesis of conservative mass transfer. In the hypothesis that the measured derivative of the orbital period reflects the secular evolution of the system, we propose a simple explanation of this puzzling result assuming that during X-ray quiescence the source is ejecting matter (and angular momentum) from the inner Lagrangian point. The proposed orbital evolution of the system suggests a degenerate or fully convective companion star and indicates that this kind of sources are capable to efficiently ablate the companion star, and therefore are black widows visible in X-rays during transient mass accretion episodes.
