Interpreting the AXP 1E 2259+586 antiglitch as a change in internal magnetization

Abstract

The sudden spin-down event ('anti-glitch') observed in AXP 1E 2259+586 on 2012 April 21 was arguably caused by a decay of its internal toroidal magnetic field component, which turns a stable prolate configuration into an unstable one. We refine previous models of this process by modelling the star's magnetic field self-consistently as a 'twisted torus' configuration in non-barotropic equilibrium (which allows us to explore a greater range of equilibrium configurations). It is shown that, if the star's magnetic field is purely dipolar, the change in the toroidal field strength required to produce an anti-glitch of the observed size can be ~ 10 times larger than previously calculated. If the star has a quadrupolar magnetic field component, then an anti-glitch of similar magnitude can be produced via a decay of the quadrupole component, in addition to a decay of the toroidal component. We show that, if the quadrupole component decays, the minimum initial toroidal field strength and the change in toroidal field strength needed to produce the observed anti-glitch are lower than in the pure dipole twisted torus. In addition, we predict the maximum anti-glitch sizes, assuming that they are caused by a change in ellipticity, in four glitching magnetars and discuss the implications for energetics of accompanying X-ray bursts.

12 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Young magnetars with fracturing crusts as fast radio burst repeaters
• A radiatively-quiet glitch and anti-glitch in the magnetar 1E 2259+586
• Discovery of the first anti-glitch event in the rotation-powered pulsar PSR B0540-69
• Strongly magnetized pulsars: explosive events and evolution
• Anti-glitches in accreting pulsars from superfluid vortex avalanches
• Premerger phenomena in neutron-star binary coalescences
• Continuous gravitational waves from trapped magnetar ejecta and the connection to glitches and antiglitches
• Breakdown of the Goldreich-Julian Relation in a Neutron Star
• The radio shut-off, glitch, and X-ray burst in 1E 1547.0-5408 interpreted through magnetic reconfiguration
• Magnetar structure in non-linear electrodynamics with mixed poloidal-toroidal fields