2001/02/09 by G. Mendell, Gregory Mendell · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Astrophysics #Boundary (topology) #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Instability #Magnetic field #Magnetohydrodynamics #Mechanics #Neutron star #Physics #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum mechanics #RADIUS #Seismic Waves and Analysis #Stars #astro-ph #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.64.044009
published as Phys.Rev. D64 (2001) 044009 · 10 pages, 4 figures, revtex
arxiv created 2001/02/09 · openalex publication_date 2001/07/23 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
This paper explores the effects that magnetic fields have on the viscous boundary layers (VBLs) that can form in neutron stars at the crust-core interface, and it investigates the VBL damping of the gravitational-radiation driven r-mode instability. Approximate solutions to the magnetohydrodynamic equations valid in the VBL are found for ordinary-fluid neutron stars. It is shown that magnetic fields above 109(1010 K/T)G significantly change the structure of the VBL, and that magnetic fields decrease the VBL damping time. Furthermore, VBL damping completely suppresses the r-mode instability for B\ensuremath\gtrsim1012 G (independent of the temperature). These bounds refer to the strength of the radial component of the equilibrium field at the location of the core radius. Magnetic effects on the VBL vanish wherever the radial component of the equilibrium field vanishes. Thus, magnetic fields will profoundly affect the VBL damping of the r-mode instability in hot young pulsars (that are cool enough to have formed a solid crust). One can speculate that magnetic fields can affect the VBL damping of this instability in low-mass x-ray binary systems and other cold old pulsars (if they have sufficiently large internal fields).