Related papers: Quaking Neutron Stars
Non-axisymmetrical deformations of the crust on rapidly rotating neutron stars are one of the main targets of searches for continuous gravitational waves. The maximum ellipticity, or fractional difference in moments of inertia, that can be…
Because of the tremendous densities that exist in the cores of neutron stars, a significant fraction of the matter in the cores of such stars is likely to exist in the form of hyperons. Depending on spin frequency, the hyperon content…
We review selected aspects of the interior physics of compact stars, focusing on the microscopic and macroscopic manifestations of spin, magnetic fields, and nucleonic superfluidity and superconductivity. Spin statistics of fermions allows…
Neutron stars are born out of core-collapse supernovae, and they are imparted natal kicks at birth as a consequence of asymmetric ejection of matter and possibly neutrinos. Unless the force resulting from the kicks is exerted exactly at…
Making use of the possibility that gluon condensate can be formed in neutron star core, we study the vortex pinning force between the crust and the interior of the neutron star. Our estimations indicate an increase in pinning strength with…
Burst oscillations, a phenomenon observed in a significant fraction of Type I (thermonuclear) X-ray bursts, involve the development of highly asymmetric brightness patches in the burning surface layers of accreting neutron stars.…
Superfluid vortices in neutron star crusts are thought to be pinned to the lattice of nuclei in the crust. The unpinning of superfluid vortices in spin glitches therefore motivates us to study the vortex-crust interaction explicitly with…
Non-rotating neutron stars are generally treated in theoretical studies as perfect spheres. Such a treatment, however, may not be correct if strong magnetic fields are present (such as for magnetars) and/or the pressure of the matter in the…
The inner crust of mature neutron stars, where an elastic lattice of neutron-rich nuclei coexists with a neutron superfluid, impacts on a range of astrophysical phenomena. The presence of the superfluid is key to our understanding of pulsar…
As mature neutron stars are cold (on the relevant temperature scale), one has to carefully consider the state of matter in their interior. The outer kilometer or so is expected to freeze to form an elastic crust of increasingly neutron-rich…
Now 50 years since the existence of the neutron star crust was proposed, we review the current understanding of the nuclear physics of the outer layers of accreting neutron stars. Nuclei produced during nuclear burning replace the nascent…
Neutron stars make a unique astrophysical test bench for our understanding of quantum physics at kilometre scales. The rotation of a neutron star features glitches, sudden spin-ups that interrupt the otherwise regular stellar spin-down,…
A number of properties of dense matter can be understood semiquantitatively in terms of simple physical arguments. We begin with the outer parts of neutron stars, and consider the density at which pressure ionization occurs, the density at…
Most astrophysical accretion disks are likely to be warped. In X-ray binaries the spin evolution of an accreting neutron star is critically dependent on the interaction between the neutron star magnetic field and the accretion disk. There…
We study the oscillations of relativistic stars, incorporating key physics associated with internal composition, thermal gradients and crust elasticity. Our aim is to develop a formalism which is able to account for the state-of-the-art…
The atmospheres of weakly-magnetized neutron stars expand hydrostatically and rotate differentially during thermonuclear X-ray bursts. Differential rotation is probably related to the frequency drifts of millisecond burst oscillations…
Timing of the Crab and Vela pulsars have recently revealed very peculiar evolutions of their spin frequency during the early stage of a glitch. We show that these differences can be interpreted from the interactions between neutron…
The gravitational-wave and accretion driven evolution of neutron stars in low mass X-ray binaries and similar systems is analyzed, while the amplitude of the radiating perturbation (here assumed to be an r-mode) remains small. If most of…
We report on a study of the evolution of magnetic fields of neutron stars, driven by the expulsion of magnetic flux out of the proton superconducting core of the star. The rate of expulsion, or equivalently the velocity of outward motion of…
Although the detailed structure of neutron stars remains unknown, their equilibrium temperatures lie well below the Fermi temperature of dense nuclear matter, suggesting that the nucleons in the stars' core form Cooper pairs and exhibit…