Surface r-modes and burst oscillations of neutron stars

Sep, 2003
20 pages
Published in:
  • Astrophys.J. 600 (2004) 914-926
e-Print:

Citations per year

200420092014201920242410
Abstract: (arXiv)
We study the rr-modes propagating in steadily mass accreting, nuclear burning, and geometrically thin envelopes on the surface of rotating neutron stars. For the modal analysis, we construct the envelope models which are fully radiaitive or have a convective region. As the angular rotation frequency Ω\Omega is increased, the oscillation frequency ω\omega of the rr-modes in the thin envelopes deviates appreciably from the asymptotic frequency ω=2mΩ/l(l+1)\omega=2m\Omega/l^\prime(l^\prime+1) defined in the limit of Ω0\Omega\to 0, where ω\omega is the frequency observed in the corotating frame of the star, and mm and ll^\prime are the indices of the spherical harmonic function YlmY_{l^\prime}^m representing the angular dependence of the modes. We find that the fundamental rr-modes in the convective models are destabilized by strong nuclear burning in the convective region. Because of excessive heating by nuclear buring, the corotating-frame oscillation frequency ω\omega of the rr-modes in the convective models becomes larger, and hence the inertial-frame oscillation frequency σ|\sigma| becomes smaller, than those of the corresopnding rr-modes in the radiative models, where σ=ωmΩ\sigma=\omega-m\Omega is negative for the rr-modes of positive mm. We find that the relative frequency change f=(σconvσrad)/σradf=-(\sigma_{conv}-\sigma_{rad})/\sigma_{rad} is always positive and becomes less than \sim0.01 for the fundamental rr-modes of l>m+1l^\prime>|m|+1 at σrad/2π|\sigma_{rad}|/2\pi\sim300Hz for m=1m=1 or at σrad/2π|\sigma_{rad}|/2\pi\sim600Hz for m=2m=2, where σconv\sigma_{conv} and σrad\sigma_{rad} denote the oscillation frequencies for the convective and the radiative envelope models, respectively.