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Register a new userSpinning down newborn neutron stars: nonlinear development of the r-mode instability
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Added by
Ruxandra Bondarescu
Publication date
2009
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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We model the nonlinear saturation of the r-mode instability via three-mode couplings and the effects of the instability on the spin evolution of young neutron stars. We include one mode triplet consisting of the r-mode and two near resonant inertial modes that couple to it. We find that the spectrum of evolutions is more diverse than previously thought. The evolution of the star is dynamic and initially dominated by fast neutrino cooling. Nonlinear effects become important when the r-mode amplitude grows above its first parametric instability threshold. The balance between neutrino cooling and viscous heating plays an important role in the evolution. Depending on the initial r-mode amplitude, and on the strength of the viscosity and of the cooling this balance can occur at different temperatures. If thermal equilibrium occurs on the r-mode stability curve, where gravitational driving equals viscous damping, the evolution may be adequately described by a one-mode model. Otherwise, nonlinear effects are important and lead to various more complicated scenarios. Once thermal balance occurs, the star spins-down oscillating between thermal equilibrium states until the instability is no longer active. For lower viscosity we observe runaway behavior in which the r-mode amplitude passes several parametric instability thresholds. In this case more modes need to be included to model the evolution accurately. In the most optimistic case, we find that gravitational radiation from the r-mode instability in a very young, fast spinning neutron star within about 1 Mpc of Earth may be detectable by advanced LIGO for years, and perhaps decades, after formation. Details regarding the amplitude and duration of the emission depend on the internal dissipation of the modes of the star, which would be probed by such detections.
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The nonlinear saturation of the r-mode instability and its effects on the spin evolution of Low Mass X-ray Binaries (LMXBs) are modeled using the triplet of modes at the lowest parametric instability threshold. We solve numerically the coupled equations for the three mode amplitudes in conjunction with the spin and temperature evolution equations. We observe that very quickly the mode amplitudes settle into quasi-stationary states. Once these states are reached, the mode amplitudes can be found algebraically and the system of equations is reduced from eight to two equations: spin and temperature evolution. Eventually, the system may reach thermal equilibrium and either (1) undergo a cyclic evolution with a frequency change of at most 10%, (2) evolve toward a full equilibrium state in which the accretion torque balances the gravitational radiation emission, or (3) enter a thermogravitational runaway on a very long timescale of about $10^6$ years. Alternatively, a faster thermal runaway (timescale of about 100 years) may occur. The sources of damping considered are shear viscosity, hyperon bulk viscosity and boundary layer viscosity. We vary proprieties of the star such as the hyperon superfluid transition temperature T_c, the fraction of the star that is above the threshold for direct URCA reactions, and slippage factor, and map the different scenarios we obtain to ranges of these parameters. For all our bound evolutions the r-mode amplitude remains small $sim 10^{-5}$. The spin frequency is limited by boundary layer viscosity to $ u_{max} sim 800 Hz [S_{ns}/(M_{1.4} R_6)]^{4/11} T_8^{-2/11}$. We find that for $ u > 700$ Hz the r-mode instability would be active for about 1 in 1000 LMXBs and that only the gravitational waves from LMXBs in the local group of galaxies could be detected by advanced LIGO interferometers.
We study the dynamical evolution of a large amplitude r-mode by numerical simulations. R-modes in neutron stars are unstable growing modes, driven by gravitational radiation reaction. In these simulations, r-modes of amplitude unity or above are destroyed by a catastrophic decay: A large amplitude r-mode gradually leaks energy into other fluid modes, which in turn act nonlinearly with the r-mode, leading to the onset of the rapid decay. As a result the r-mode suddenly breaks down into a differentially rotating configuration. The catastrophic decay does not appear to be related to shock waves at the stars surface. The limit it imposes on the r-mode amplitude is significantly smaller than that suggested by previous fully nonlinear numerical simulations.
Superfluid hydrodynamics affects the spin-evolution of mature neutron stars, and may be key to explaining timing irregularities such as pulsar glitches. However, most models for this phenomenon exclude the global instability required to trigger the event. In this paper we discuss a mechanism that may fill this gap. We establish that small scale inertial r-modes become unstable in a superfluid neutron star that exhibits a rotational lag, expected to build up due to vortex pinning as the star spins down. Somewhat counterintuitively, this instability arises due to the (under normal circumstances dissipative) vortex-mediated mutual friction. We explore the nature of the superfluid instability for a simple incompressible model, allowing for entrainment coupling between the two fluid components. Our results recover a previously discussed dynamical instability in systems where the two components are strongly coupled. In addition, we demonstrate for the first time that the system is secularly unstable (with a growth time that scales with the mutual friction) throughout much of parameter space. Interestingly, large scale r-modes are also affected by this new aspect of the instability. We analyse the damping effect of shear viscosity, which should be particularly efficient at small scales, arguing that it will not be sufficient to completely suppress the instability in astrophysical systems.
We revisit the possibility and detectability of a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) produced by a cosmological population of newborn neutron stars (NSs) with r-mode instabilities. We show that the resultant SGWB is insensitive to the choice of CSFR models, but depends strongly on the evolving behavior of CSFR at low redshifts. Our results show that the dimensionless energy density $Omega_{rm{GW}}$ could have a peak amplitude of $simeq (1-3.5) times10^{-8}$ in the frequency range $(200-1000)$~Hz. However, such a high mode amplitude is unrealistic as it is known that the maximum value is much smaller and at most $10^{-2}$. A realistic estimate of $Omega_{rm{GW}}$ should be at least 4 orders of magnitude lower ($sim 10^{-12}$), which leads to a pessimistic outlook for the detection of r-mode background. We consider different pairs of terrestrial interferometers (IFOs) and compare two approaches to combine multiple IFOs in order to evaluate the detectability of this GW background. Constraints on the total emitted GW energy associated with this mechanism to produce a detectable stochastic background are $sim 10^{-3} M_{odot} c^2$ for two co-located advanced LIGO detectors, and $2 times 10^{-5} M_{odot} c^2$ for two Einstein Telescopes. These constraints may also be applicable to alternative GW emission mechanisms related to oscillations or instabilities in NSs depending on the frequency band where most GWs are emitted.
R-modes in neutron stars with crusts are damped by viscous friction at the crust-core boundary. The magnitude of this damping, evaluated by Bildsten and Ushomirsky (BU) under the assumption of a perfectly rigid crust, sets the maximum spin frequency for a neutron star spun up by accretion in a Low-Mass X-ray binary (LMXB). In this paper we explore the mechanical coupling between the core r-modes and the elastic crust, using a toy model of a constant density neutron star with a constant shear modulus crust. We find that, at spin frequencies in excess of ~50 Hz, the r-modes strongly penetrate the crust. This reduces the relative motion (slippage) between the crust and the core compared to the rigid crust limit. We therefore revise down, by as much as a factor of 10^2-10^3, the damping rate computed by BU, significantly reducing the maximal possible spin frequency of neutron star with a solid crust. The dependence of the crust-core slippage on the spin frequency is complicated, and is very sensitive to the physical thickness of the crust. If the crust is sufficiently thick, the curve of the critical spin frequency for the onset of the r-mode instability becomes multi-valued for some temperatures; this is related to the avoided crossings between the r-mode and the higher-order torsional modes in the crust. The critical frequencies are comparable to the observed spins of neutron stars in LMXBs and millisecond pulsars.
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