Mallory

Redbacks and Black Widows are close binary systems where the wind from a millisecond pulsar is forced to shock at $sim 10^4$ light cylinder radii rather than the more typical $10^8$ of pulsar wind nebulae. This means they can potentially probe $sigma$ in a region very different than a PWN termination shock. It is also the case that the primary shock is likely limited to a region very near the companion star, and hence only near the equatorial plane of the pulsar wind. X-ray observations of these systems show a variety of orbitally dependent behavior. Sometimes the emission is very inefficient, but in some cases it is extremely efficient. This suggests the shock must be taking place in a magnetic field of several Gauss and that most of the pulsar spin-down power comes out as an equatorially concentrated wind. However, the interpretation is complicated by a potentially significant role for the magnetic field of the companion. I will present an overview of the multiwavelength observations of these systems as well as new NuStar data on one particularly interesting system, PSR J2129-0429, and discuss the implications for pulsar winds.