ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

Magnetar activity mediated by plastic deformations of neutron star crust

10   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Maxim Lyutikov
 تاريخ النشر 2014
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English
 تأليف Maxim Lyutikov




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

We advance a Solar flare model of magnetar activity, whereas a slow evolution of the magnetic field in the upper crust, driven by electron MHD (EMHD) flows, twists the external magnetic flux tubes, producing persistent emission, bursts and flares. At the same time the neutron star crust plastically relieves the imposed magnetic field stress, limiting the strain $ epsilon_t $ to values well below the critical strain $ epsilon_{crit}$ of a brittle fracture, $ epsilon_t sim 10^{-2}epsilon_{crit} $. Magnetar-like behavior, occurring near the magnetic equator, takes place in all neutron stars, but to a different extent. The persistent luminosity is proportional to cubic power of the magnetic field (at a given age), and hence is hardly observable in most rotationally powered neutron stars. Giant flares can occur only if the magnetic field exceeds some threshold value, while smaller bursts and flares may take place in relatively small magnetic fields. Bursts and flares are magnetospheric reconnection events that launch Alfven shocks which convert into high frequency whistlers upon hitting the neutron star surface. The resulting whistler pulse induces a strain that increases with depth both due to the increasing electron density (and the resulting slowing of the waves), and due to the increasing coherence of a whistler pulse with depth. The whistler pulse is dissipated on a time scale of approximately a day at shallow depths corresponding to $rho sim 10^{10} {rm g cm}^{-3}$; this energy is detected as enhanced post-flare surface emission.

قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

The strength of neutron star crust is crucial for modelling magnetar flares, pulsar glitches and gravitational wave emission. We aim to shed some light on this problem by analysing uniaxial stretch deformation (elongation and contraction) of perfect body-centered cubic Coulomb crystals, paying special attention to the inherent anisotropy of this process. Our analysis is based on the semi-analytical approach of Baiko and Kozhberov (2017), which, for any uniform deformation, allows one to calculate, in fully non-linear regime, critical deformation parameters beyond which the lattice loses its dynamic stability. We determine critical strain, pressure anisotropy and deformation energy for any stretch direction with respect to the crystallographic axes. These quantities are shown to be strongly anisotropic: they vary by a factor of almost 10 depending on the orientation of the deformation axis. For polycrystalline crust, we argue that the maximum strain for the stretch deformation sustainable elastically is 0.04. It is lower than the breaking strain of 0.1 obtained in molecular dynamic simulations of a shear deformation by Horowitz and Kadau (2009). The maximum pressure anisotropy of polycrystalline matter is estimated to be in the range from 0.005 to 0.014 $nZ^2e^2/a$, where $n$ is the ion number density, $Ze$ is the ion charge, and $a$ is the ion-sphere radius. We discuss possible mechanisms of plastic motion and formation of large crystallites in neutron star crust as well as analyse energy release associated with breaking of such crystallites in the context of magnetic field evolution and magnetar flaring activity.
In this study, we examine the magnetic field evolution occurring in a neutron star crust. Beyond the elastic limit, the lattice ions are assumed to act as a plastic flow. The Ohmic dissipation, Hall drift, and bulk fluid velocity driven by the Lorent z force are considered in our numerical simulation. A magnetically induced quadrupole deformation is observed in the crust during the evolution. Generally, the ellipticity decreases as the magnetic energy decreases. In a toroidal-field-dominated model, the sign of the ellipticity changes. Namely, the initial prolate shape tends to become oblate. This occurs because the toroidal component decays rapidly on a smaller timescale than the poloidal dipole component. We find that the magnetic dipole component does not change significantly on the Hall timescale of $sim 1$Myr for the considered simple initial models. Thus, a more complex initial model is required to study the fast decay of surface dipoles on the abovementioned timescale.
We examine the equilibrium of a magnetized neutron-star-crust. We calculate axially symmetric models in which an elastic force balances solenoidal motion driven by a Lorentz force. A large variety of equilibrium models are allowed by incorporating th e elastic shear deformation; in addition, toroidal-magnetic-field dominated models are available. These results remarkably differ from those in barotropic fluid stars. We demonstrate some models wherein the magnetic energy exceeds the elastic energy. The excess comes from the fact that a large amount of magnetic energy is associated with the irrotational part of the magnetic force, which is balanced with gravity and pressure. It is sufficient for equilibrium models that the minor solenoidal part is balanced by a weak elastic force. We find that the elasticity in the crust plays an important role on the magnetic-field confinement. Further, we present the spatial distribution of the shear-stress at the elastic limit, by which the crust-fracture location can be identified. The result has useful implications for realistic crust-quake models.
To make best use of multi-faceted astronomical and nuclear data-sets, probability distributions of neutron star models that can be used to propagate errors consistently from one domain to another are required. We take steps toward a consistent model for this purpose, highlight where model inconsistencies occur and assess the resulting model uncertainty. Using two distributions of nuclear symmetry energy parameters - one uniform, the other based on pure neutron matter theory, we prepare two ensembles of neutron star inner crust models. We use an extended Skyrme energy-density functional within a compressible liquid drop model (CLDM). We fit the surface parameters of the CLDM to quantum 3D Hartree-Fock calculations of crustal nuclei. All models predict more than 50% of the crust by mass and 15% of the crust by thickness comprises pasta with medians of around 62% and 30% respectively. We also present 68% and 95% ranges for the crust composition as a function of density. We examine the relationships between crust-core boundary and pasta transition properties, the thickness of the pasta layers, the symmetry energy at saturation and sub-saturation densities and the neutron skins of 208Pb and 48Ca. We quantify the correlations using the maximal information coefficient, which can effectively characterize non-linear relationships. Future measurements of neutron skins, information from nuclear masses and giant resonances, and theoretical constraints on PNM will be able to place constraints on the location of the pasta and crust-core boundaries and the amount of pasta in the crust.
Force-free pulsar magnetospheres develop a large scale poloidal electric current circuit that flows along open magnetic field lines from the neutron star to the termination shock. The electric current closes through the interior of the neutron star w here it provides the torque that spins-down the star. In the present work, we study the internal electric current in an axisymmetric rotator. We evaluate the path of the electric current by requiring the minimization of internal Ohmic losses. We find that, in millisecond pulsars, the current reaches the base of the crust, while in pulsars with periods of a few seconds, the bulk of the electric current does not penetrate deeper than about $100$ m. The region of maximum spin-down torque in millisecond pulsars is the base of the crust, while in slowly spinning ones it is the outer crust. We evaluate the corresponding Maxwell stresses and find that, in typical rotation-powered radio pulsars, they are well below the critical stress that can be sustained by the crust. For magnetar-level fields, the Maxwell stresses near the surface are comparable to the critical stress and may lead to the decoupling of the crust from the rest of the stellar rotation.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا