arXiv subjects

Andrew Melatos

Publications and source records attributed to Andrew Melatos.

113 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

Superfluid vortex unpinning as a coherent noise process, and the scale invariance of pulsar glitches

The scale-invariant glitch statistics observed in individual pulsars (exponential waiting-time and power-law size distributions) are consistent with a critical self-organization process, wherein superfluid vortices pin metastably in macroscopic domains and unpin collectively via nearest-neighbor avalanches. Macroscopic inhomogeneity emerges naturally if pinning occurs at crustal faults. If, instead, pinning occurs at lattice sites and defects, which are macroscopically homogeneous, we show that an alternative, noncritical self-organization process operates, termed coherent noise, wherein the global Magnus force acts uniformly on vortices trapped in a range of pinning potentials and undergoing thermal creep. It is found that vortices again unpin collectively, but not via nearest-neighbor avalanches, and that, counterintuitively, the resulting glitch sizes are scale invariant, in accord with observational data. A mean-field analytic theory of the coherent noise process, supported by Monte-Carlo simulations, yields a power-law size distribution, between the smallest and largest glitch, with exponent $a$ in the range $-2\leq a \leq 0$. When the theory is fitted to data from the nine most active pulsars, including the two quasiperiodic glitchers PSR J0537$-$6910 and PSR J0835$-$4510, it directly constrains the distribution of pinning potentials in the star, leading to two conclusions: (i) the potentials are broadly distributed, with the mean comparable to the standard deviation; and (ii) the mean potential decreases with characteristic age. An observational test is proposed to discriminate between nearest-neighbor avalanches and coherent noise.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2008

Gravitational Radiation from Accreting Millisecond Pulsars

It is widely assumed that the observed reduction of the magnetic field of millisecond pulsars can be connected to the accretion phase during which the pulsar is spun up by mass accretion from a companion. A wide variety of reduction mechanisms have been proposed, including the burial of the field by a magnetic mountain, formed when the accreted matter is confined to the poles by the tension of the stellar magnetic field. A magnetic mountain effectively screens the magnetic dipole moment. On the other hand, observational data suggests that accreting neutron stars are sources of gravitational waves, and magnetic mountains are a natural source of a time-dependent quadrupole moment. We show that the emission is sufficiently strong to be detectable by current and next generation long-baseline interferometers. Preliminary results from fully three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations are presented. We find that the initial axisymmetric state relaxes into a nearly axisymmetric configuration via toroidal magnetic modes. A substantial quadrupole moment is still present in the final state, which is stable (in ideal MHD) yet highly distorted.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Nonideal evolution of nonaxisymmetric, force-free magnetic fields in a magnetar

Recent numerical magnetohydrodynamic calculations by Braithwaite and collaborators support the `fossil field' hypothesis regarding the origin of magnetic fields in compact stars and suggest that the resistive evolution of the fossil field can explain the reorganisation and decay of magnetar magnetic fields. Here, these findings are modelled analytically by allowing the stellar magnetic field to relax through a quasistatic sequence of nonaxisymmetric, force-free states, by analogy with spheromak relaxation experiments, starting from a random field. Under the hypothesis that the force-free modes approach energy equipartition in the absence of resistivity, the output of the numerical calculations is semiquantitatively recovered: the field settles down to a linked poloidal-toroidal configuration, which inflates and becomes more toroidal as time passes. A qualitatively similar (but not identical) end state is reached if the magnetic field evolves by exchanging helicity between small and large scales according to an $α$-dynamo-like, mean-field mechanism, arising from the fluctuating electromotive force produced by the initial random field. The impossibility of matching a force-free internal field to a potential exterior field is discussed in the magnetar context.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Collapsed and Extended Cold Dark Matter Haloes in Softened N-Body Gravity

The statistical mechanics of N cold dark matter (CDM) particles interacting via a softened gravitational potential is reviewed in the microcanonical ensemble and mean-field limit. A phase diagram for the system is computed as a function of the total energy E and gravitational softening length epsilon. For softened systems, two stable phases exist: a collapsed phase, whose radial density profile rho(r) is a central Dirac cusp, and an extended phase, for which rho(r) has a central core and rho(r) ~ r^{-2.2} at large r. It is shown that many N-body simulations of CDM haloes in the literature inadvertently sample the collapsed phase only, even though this phase is unstable when there is zero softening. Consequently, there is no immediate reason to expect agreement between simulated and observed profiles unless the gravitational potential is appreciably softened in nature.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1999

Origin of the transient unpulsed radio emission from the PSR B1259-63 binary system

We discuss the interpretation of transient, unpulsed radio emission detected from the unique pulsar/Be-star binary system PSR B1259-63. Extensive monitoring of the 1994 and 1997 periastron passages has shown that the source flares over a 100-day interval around periastron, varying on time-scales as short as a day and peaking at 60 mJy (~100 times the apastron flux density) at 1.4 GHz. Interpreting the emission as synchrotron radiation, we show that (i) the observed variations in flux density are too large to be caused by the shock interaction between the pulsar wind and an isotropic, radiatively driven, Be-star wind, and (ii) the radio emitting electrons do not originate from the pulsar wind. We argue instead that the radio electrons originate from the circumstellar disk of the Be star and are accelerated at two epochs, one before and one after periastron, when the pulsar passes through the disk. A simple model incorporating two epochs of impulsive acceleration followed by synchrotron cooling reproduces the essential features of the radio light curve and spectrum and is consistent with the system geometry inferred from pulsed radio data.

astro-ph↗