Magnetar Oscillations: Observing the Physics of the Magnetized Neutron Star Crust

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

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Scientific paper

Highly magnetized neutron stars, magnetars, emit irregular and extremely energetic gamma ray flares. These flares are thought to be powered by fracturing and restructuring of the neutron star crust, i.e., a starquake. During some giant flares, quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) are observed, and these have been identified with torsional modes excited by the starquake. We construct a new neutron star crust model which predicts nuclear masses with an accuracy very close to that of the Finite Range Droplet Model and also includes the effect of the strong magnetic field on the electrons. Torsional oscillation frequencies are computed from the crust model, and the impact of nuclear shell effects and the magnetic field on the oscillation frequencies is delineated. QPO predictions are sensitive to the crust thickness of the neutron star, and we determine the extent to which these QPOs might be used to constrain magnetar masses and radii. This work is supported by NASA ATFP grant NNX08AG76G, by Chandra grant TM1-12003X, and by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics at MSU under NSF PHY grant 08-22648.

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