No Arabic abstract
We suggest that the collision of a small solid body with a pulsar can lead to an observable glitch/anti-glitch. The glitch amplitude depends on the mass of the small body and the impact parameter as well. In the collision, a considerable amount of potential energy will be released either in the form of a short hard X-ray burst or as a relatively long-lasting soft X-ray afterglow. The connection between the glitch amplitude and the X-ray energetics can help to diagnose the nature of these timing anomalies.
The sudden spin-down in the rotation of magnetar 1E 2259+586 observed by Archibald et al. (2013) was a rare event. However this particular event, referred to as an anti-glitch, was followed by another event which Archibald et al. (2013) suggested could either be a conventional glitch or another anti-glitch. Although there is no accompanied radiation activity or pulse profile change, there is decisive evidence for the existence of the second timing event, judging from the timing data. We apply Bayesian Model Selection to quantitatively determine which of these possibilities better explains the observed data. We show that the observed data strongly supports the presence of two successive anti-glitches with a Bayes Factor, often called the odds ratio, greater than 40. Furthermore, we show that the second anti-gtlich has an associated frequency change $Delta u$ of $-8.2 times 10^{-8}$ Hz. We discuss the implications of these results for possible physical mechanisms behind this anti-glitch.
Several glitches have been observed in young, isolated radio pulsars, while a clear detection in accretion-powered X-ray pulsars is still lacking. We use the Pizzochero snowplow model for pulsar glitches as well as starquake models to determine for the first time the expected properties of glitches in accreting pulsars and their observability. Since some accreting pulsars show accretion-induced long-term spin-up, we also investigate the possibility that anti-glitches occur in these stars. We find that glitches caused by quakes in a slow accreting neutron star are very rare and their detection extremely unlikely. On the contrary, glitches and anti-glitches caused by a transfer of angular momentum between the superfluid neutron vortices and the non-superfluid component may take place in accreting pulsars more often. We calculate the maximum jump in angular velocity of an anti-glitch and we find that it is expected to be about 1E-5 - 1E-4 rad/s. We also note that since accreting pulsars usually have rotational angular velocities lower than those of isolated glitching pulsars, both glitches and anti-glitches are expected to have long rise and recovery timescales compared to isolated glitching pulsars, with glitches and anti-glitches appearing as a simple step in angular velocity. Among accreting pulsars, we find that GX 1+4 is the best candidate for the detection of glitches with currently operating X-ray instruments and future missions such as the proposed Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT).
We report on the timing and spectral properties of the soft X-ray emission from the magnetar 1E 2259+586 from January 2013, $sim 8$ months after the detection of an anti-glitch, until September 2019, using the Neil Gehrels Swift and NICER observatories. During this time span, we detect two timing discontinuities. The first, occurring around 5 years after the April 2012 anti-glitch, is a relatively large spin-up glitch with a fractional amplitude $Delta u/ u=1.24(2)times10^{-6}$. We find no evidence for flux enhancement or change in the spectral or pulse profile shape around the time of this glitch. This is consistent with the picture that a significant number of magnetar spin-up glitches are radiatively-quiet. Approximately 1.5 years later in April 2019, 1E 2259+586 exhibited an anti-glitch with spin-down of a fractional amplitude $Delta u/ u=-5.8(1)times10^{-7}$; similar to the fractional change detected in 2012. We do not, however, detect any change to the pulse-profile shape or increase in the rms pulsed flux of the source, nor do we see any possible bursts from its direction around the time of the anti-glitch; all of which occurred during the 2012 event. Hence, similar to spin-up glitches, anti-glitches can occur silently. This may suggest that these phenomena originate in the neutron star interior, and that their locale and triggering mechanism do not necessarily have to be connected to the magnetosphere. Lastly, our observations suggest that the occurrence rate of spin-up and spin-down glitches is about the same in 1E 2259+586, with the former having a larger net fractional change.
We present the results from timing observations with the GMRT of the young pulsar J1833-1034, in the galactic supernova remnant G21.5-0.9. We detect the presence of 4 glitches in this pulsar over a period of 5.5 years, making it one of a set of pulsars that show fairly frequent glitches. The glitch amplitudes, characterized by the fractional change of the rotational frequency, range from 1 times 10^-9 to 7 times 10^-9, with no evidence for any appreciable relaxation of the rotational frequency after the glitches. The fractional changes observed in the frequency derivative are of the order of 10-5 . We show conclusively that, in spite of having significant timing noise, the sudden irregularities like glitches detected in this pulsar can not be modeled as smooth timing noise. Our timing solution also provides a stable estimate of the second derivative of the pulsar spin-down model, and a plausible value for the braking index of 1.857, which, like the value for other such young pulsars, is much less than the canonical value of 3.0. PSR J1833-1034 appears to belong to a class of pulsars exhibiting fairly frequent occurrence of low amplitude glitches. This is further supported by an estimate of the glitch activity parameter, Ag = 1.53 times 10^-15 s^-2, which is found to be significantly lower than the trend of glitch activity versus characteristic age (or spin frequency derivative) that a majority of the glitching pulsars follow. We present evidence for a class of such young pulsars, including the Crab, where higher internal temperature of the neutron star could be responsible for the nature of the observed glitch activity.
Glitches are sudden jumps in the spin frequency of pulsars believed to originate in the superfluid interior of neutron stars. Superfluid flow in a model neutron star is simulated by solving the equations of motion of a two-component superfluid consisting of a viscous proton-electron plasma and an inviscid neutron condensate in a spherical Couette geometry. We examine the response of our model neutron star to glitches induced in three different ways: by instantaneous changes of the spin frequency of the inner and outer boundaries, and by instantaneous recoupling of the fluid components in the bulk. All simulations are performed with strong and weak mutual friction. It is found that the maximum size of a glitch that originates in the bulk decreases as the mutual friction strengthens. It is also found that mutual friction determines the fraction of the frequency jump which is later recovered, a quantity known as the healing parameter. These behaviours may explain some of the diversity in observed glitch recoveries.