Saturation of the R mode instability
Feb, 2002
25 pages
Published in:
- Astrophys.J. 591 (2003) 1129-1151
e-Print:
- astro-ph/0202345 [astro-ph]
DOI:
View in:
Citations per year
Abstract: (arXiv)
Rossby waves (r-modes) in rapidly rotating neutron stars are unstable because of the emission of gravitational radiation. We study saturation of this instability by nonlinear transfer of energy to stellar inertial oscillation modes. We present detailed calculations of stellar inertial modes in the WKB limit, their linear damping by bulk and shear viscosity, and the nonlinear coupling forces among these modes. The saturation amplitude is derived in the extreme limits of strong or weak driving by radiation reaction, as compared to the damping rate of low order inertial modes. We find the saturation energy is {\it extremely small}, at least four orders of magnitude smaller than that found by previous investigators. We discuss the consequences of this result for spin evolution of young neutron stars, and neutron stars being spun up by accretion in Low Mass X-ray Binaries.We also discuss the detection of these gravitational waves by LIGO.- n: matter
- rotation
- star: stability
- gravitational radiation: emission
- model: oscillation
- WKB approximation
- energy loss
- coupling: nonlinear
- amplitude analysis
- energy: flux
References(35)
Figures(0)