Instability of Superfluid Flow in the Neutron Star Inner Crust
arXiv:1105.4654 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.20740.x
Abstract
Pinning of superfluid vortices to the nuclear lattice of the inner crust of a neutron star supports a velocity difference between the superfluid and the solid as the star spins down. Under the Magnus force that arises on the vortex lattice, vortices undergo {\em vortex creep} through thermal activation or quantum tunneling. We examine the hydrodynamic stability of this situation. Vortex creep introduces two low-frequency modes, one of which is unstable above a critical wavenumber for any non-zero flow velocity of the superfluid with respect to the solid. For typical pinning parameters of the inner crust, the superfluid flow is unstable over length scales $\lap 10$ m and over timescales as fast as months. The vortex lattice could degenerate into a tangle, and the superfluid flow could become turbulent. Unexpectedly large dissipation would suppress this instability.
9 pages. Final journal version
References in corpus (10)
- Transitions between turbulent and laminar superfluid vorticity states in the outer core of a neutron star
- A hydrodynamical trigger mechanism for pulsar glitches
- Quantum calculation of vortices in the inner crust of neutron stars
- Dynamics of Quantum Vorticity in a Random Potential
- On the stability of precessing superfluid neutron stars
- Instability of Superfluid Flow in the Neutron Star Core
- Hydromagnetic waves in a superfluid neutron star with strong vortex pinning
- An unstable superfluid Stewartson layer in a differentially rotating neutron star
- Tkachenko modes in rotating neutron stars: the effect of compressibility and implications for pulsar timing noise
- Spin-down Rate of Pinned Superfluid
Cited by in corpus (26)
- I-Love-Q Relations in Neutron Stars and their Applications to Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves and Fundamental Physics
- Models of Pulsar Glitches
- Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars: A Review
- Timing of young radio pulsars I: Timing noise, periodic modulation and proper motion
- Mesoscopic pinning forces in neutron star crusts
- Pulsar timing noise from superfluid turbulence
- Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory and the Real-Time Dynamics of Fermi Superfluids
- The UTMOST pulsar timing programme II: Timing noise across the pulsar population
- Chiral Magnetic Effect in Protoneutron Stars and Magnetic Field Spectral Evolution
- Magnetic Field Generation in Stars
- Knock-on processes in superfluid vortex avalanches and pulsar glitch statistics
- Evidence for an abundant old population of Galactic ultra long period magnetars and implications for fast radio bursts
- Simulated magnetic field expulsion in neutron star cores
- Stochastic gravitational wave background from hydrodynamic turbulence in differentially rotating neutron stars
- Stability of interlinked neutron vortex and proton flux tube arrays in a neutron star: equilibrium configurations
- Instability of Superfluid Flow in the Neutron Star Core
- A superfluid perspective on neutron star dynamics
- Investigating superconductivity in neutron star interiors with glitch models
- Thermally-Activated Post-Glitch Response of the Neutron Star Inner Crust and Core. I: Theory
- The effect of realistic equations of state and general relativity on the "snowplow" model for pulsar glitches
- Magnetar giant flare oscillations and the nuclear symmetry energy
- Superfluid instability of r-modes in "differentially rotating" neutron stars
- Hydrodynamical instabilities in superfluid neutron stars with background flows between the components
- Hydrodynamic Stability Analysis of the Neutron Star Core
- Evidence for pulsars metamorphism and their possible connection to black holes and dark matter in cosmology
- How much spin wandering can continuous gravitational wave search algorithms handle?