Spontaneous wandering of the magnetic axis in pulsars: 3D magneto-thermal simulations and the imprint on braking indices
Braking index measurements of hundreds of pulsars, despite observational caveats, show a clear trend: $n<3$ at early ages, $n>3$ at middle ages, and increasingly large, fluctuating values at larger characteristic ages. Crustal magnetic fields in isolated neutron stars evolve through Ohmic dissipation and non-linear Hall redistribution across scales, with additional early-time contributions from the chiral magnetic effect and post-burial re-emergence. Initial conditions are usually assumed dipole-dominated, whereas more complex and realistic fields, with energy spread more evenly over a broad range of scales, have not been explored in this context. We assess how the internal dynamics of initially non-trivial fields change the dipolar field strength and obliquity, and how their combined contribution to the braking index $n$, together with that of the alignment, compares with the observed values. To this end we perform long-term 3D magneto-thermal simulations, for configurations ranging from the dipole-dominated case to tangled, small-scale-dominated fields. Small-scale dominated configurations with weak dipolar components show rich dynamics: the dipolar mode is continuously fed by the small scales and may grow or decay depending on the initial spectrum, driving $n<3$ or $n>3$, while the obliquity varies on timescales as short as ${\cal O}$(kyr). These spontaneous changes often dominate the alignment torque and can account for the large values of $n-3$ of either sign observed at characteristic ages $τ_c\gtrsim10^5$ yr, unlike the dipole-dominated models. However, short-term magnetospheric fluctuations or superfluid-driven variations of the torque may still be needed to explain the measurements and the structured timing residuals quantitatively. Future work comparing these models with the observed timing properties could fine-tune the most promising initial configurations.