Superfluid turbulence and pulsar glitch statistics

Abstract

Experimental evidence is reviewed for the existence of superfluid turbulence in a differentially rotating, spherical shell at high Reynolds numbers ($\Rey\gsim 10^3$), such as the outer core of a neutron star. It is shown that torque variability increases with $\Rey$, suggesting that glitch activity in radio pulsars may be a function of $\Rey$ as well. The $\Rey$ distribution of the 67 glitching radio pulsars with characteristic ages ${\tau }_c\le 10^6$ {\rm yr} is constructed from radio timing data and cooling curves and compared with the $\Rey$ distribution of all 348 known pulsars with ${\tau }_c\le 10^6$ {\rm yr}. The two distributions are different, with a Kolmogorov-Smirnov probability $\ge 1-3.9\times 10^{-3}$. The conclusion holds for (modified) Urca and nonstandard cooling, and for Newtonian and superfluid viscosities.

References in corpus (4)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• Predicting the Starquakes in PSR J0537-6910
• Transitions between turbulent and laminar superfluid vorticity states in the outer core of a neutron star
• 30 Glitches in slow pulsars

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Avalanche dynamics of radio pulsar glitches
• A Cellular Automaton Model of Pulsar Glitches
• Superfluid vortex unpinning as a coherent noise process, and the scale invariance of pulsar glitches
• Hydromagnetic waves in a superfluid neutron star with strong vortex pinning
• Do superfluid instabilities prevent neutron star precession?
• Astro-quark matter: a challenge facing astroparticle physics