2004/02/29 by Yuri Levin, Caroline D’Angelo, Caroline D'Angelo · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Scientific Research and Discoveries #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/423197
published as Astrophys.J. 613 (2004) 1157-1163 · 6 pages
arxiv created 2004/02/29 · openalex publication_date 2004/10/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider two types of mechanical coupling between the crust and the core of a precessing neutron star. First, we find that a hydromagnetic (MHD) coupling between the crust and the core strongly modifies the star's precessional modes when t A ≲ 1/2 ; here t A is the Alfvén crossing timescale, and T spin and T prec are the star's spin and precession periods, respectively. We argue that in the precessing pulsar PSR B1828-11 the restoring MHD stress prevents a free wobble of the crust relative to the nonprecessing core. Instead, the crust and the proton-electron plasma in the core must precess in unison, and their combined ellipticity determines the period of precession. Link has recently shown that the neutron superfluid vortices in the core of PSR B1828-11 cannot be pinned to the plasma; he has also argued that this lack of pinning is expected if the proton Fermi liquid in the core is a type I superconductor. In this case, the neutron superfluid is dynamically decoupled from the precessing motion. The pulsar's precession decays as a result of the mutual friction between the neutron superfluid and the plasma in the core. The decay is expected to occur over tens to hundreds of precession periods and may be measurable over a human lifetime. Such a measurement would provide information about the strong neutron-proton interaction in the neutron star core. Second, we consider the effect of gravitomagnetic coupling between the neutron superfluid in the core and the rest of the star and show that this coupling changes the rate of precession by about 10%. The general formalism developed in this paper may be useful for other applications.