The event that forms most neutron stars is the gravitational collapse that results in a supernova. It is
difficult to predict the waveform or amplitude expected from this event. Although detecting this
radiation has been a goal of detector development for decades, little more is known about what to
expect than 30 years ago. The burst might be at any frequency between 100 Hz and 1 kHz, and
it might be a regular chirp (from a rotating deformed core) or a more chaotic signal (from
convective motions in the core). Considerable energy is released by a collapse, and on simple
energetic grounds this source could produce strong radiation: if the emitted energy is more than
about , then second-generation detectors would have no trouble seeing events that
occur in the Virgo Cluster. This energetic consideration drove the early development of bar
detectors.
But numerical simulations tell a different story, and it seems very likely that radiation amplitudes will be much smaller, as described in Section 3. Such signals might be detectable by second-generation detectors from a supernova in our galaxy, but not from much greater distances. When they are finally detected, the gravitational waves will be extremely interesting, providing our only information about the dynamics inside the collapse, and helping to determine the equation of state of hot nuclear matter.
If gravitational collapse forms a neutron star spinning very rapidly, then it may be followed by a
relatively long period (perhaps a year) of emission of nearly monochromatic gravitational radiation, as the
r-mode instability (Section 7.3.4) forces the star to spin down to speeds of about 100 – 200 Hz [279]. If as
few as 10% of all the neutron stars formed since star formation began (at a redshift of perhaps four) went
through such a spindown, then they may have produced a detectable random background of gravitational
radiation at frequencies down to 20 Hz [327].
When two neutron stars merge, they will almost certainly have too much mass to remain as a star, and will
eventually collapse to a black hole, unless they can somehow expel a significant amount of mass. The
collision heats up the nuclear matter to a point where, at least initially, thermal pressure becomes
significant. Numerical simulations can use theoretical equations of state (such as that of Lattimer and
Swesty [237]) to predict the merger radiation, and observations will then test the nuclear physics
assumptions that go into the equation of state. Simulations show that the choice of equation of state makes
a big difference to the emitted waveform, as do the masses of the stars: there is no mass scaling as there is
for black holes [62].
When a neutron star encounters a black hole in a stellar compact binary merger, the star may not be heated very much by the tidal forces, and the dynamics may be governed by the cold nuclear-matter equation of state, about which there is great uncertainty. Again, comparing observed with predicted waveforms may provide some insight into this equation of state. Simulations suggest that these systems may give rise to many of the observed short, hard gamma-ray bursts [155, 339]. Simultaneous gravitational wave and gamma ray detections would settle the issue and open the way to more detailed modeling of these systems.
Gravitational wave observations at high frequencies of neutron-star vibrations may also constrain the
cold-matter equation of state. In Figure 2 there is a dot for the typical neutron star. The corresponding
frequency is the fundamental vibrational frequency of such an object. In fact, neutron stars have a rich
spectrum of nonradial normal modes, which fall into several families: f, g, p, w, and r-modes have all
been studied. These have been reviewed by Andersson and Comer [38
]. If their gravitational
wave emissions can be detected, then the details of their spectra would be a sensitive probe
of their structure and of the equation of state of neutron stars, in much the same way that
helioseismology probes the interior of the sun. Even knowing accurately the frequency and decay time of
just the fundamental
f-mode would be enough to eliminate most current equations of
state [39
].
This is a challenge to ground-based interferometers, which have so far focussed their efforts on frequencies below 1 kHz. But Advanced LIGO and the upgraded GEO-HF detector (Section 4.3.1) may have the capability to perform narrow-banding and enhance their sensitivity considerably at frequencies up to perhaps 2 kHz, which could put the f-modes of neutron stars into range.
The f-modes of neutron stars, which could be excited by glitches or by the nuclear explosions on accreting neutron stars that are thought to produce X-ray flares and soft gamma-ray repeater events. The rise-time of X-ray emission can be as short as a few milliseconds [173], which might be impulsive enough to excite acoustic vibrations. If the rise time of the explosion matches the period of the mode well enough, then a substantial fraction of the energy released could go into mechanical vibration, and almost all of this fraction would be carried away by gravitational waves, since other mode-damping mechanisms inside neutron stars are much less efficient.
Radio-pulsar glitches seem to release energies of order 1035 J, and X-ray and gamma ray events can be
much more energetic. Using Equation (20), we can estimate that the release of that much energy into
gravitational waves at 2 kHz at a distance of 1 kpc would create a wave of effective amplitude around
3 × 10–22. (The effective amplitude assumes we can do matched filtering, which in this case is not very
difficult.) This kind of amplitude should be within the reach of Advanced LIGO (Figure 5
) and perhaps
GEO-HF, provided they implement narrowbanding. This will not be easy, either scientifically or
operationally, but the payoff in terms of our understanding of neutron star physics could be very
substantial.
Observations of these modes would immediately constrain the cold-matter nuclear equation of state in
significant ways [39, 38].
In fact, modes of neutron stars may have already been observed in X-rays [386]. But these are likely to be crustal modes, whose restoring force is the shear strength of the crust. While the physics of the crust is interesting in itself, such observations provide only weak constraints on the interior physics of the neutron star.
Observations by the Rossi satellite (RXTE) have given evidence that the class of X-ray sources called Low-Mass X-ray Binaries (LMXB’s) contains neutron stars with a remarkably narrow range of spins, between perhaps 250 Hz and 320 Hz [376]. These are systems in which it is believed that neutron stars are spun up from the low angular velocities they have after their lifetime as normal pulsars to the high spins that millisecond pulsars have. One would expect, therefore, that the spins of neutron stars in such systems would be spread over a wide range. The fact that they are not requires an explanation.
The most viable explanation offered so far is the suggestion of Bildsten [79] that gravitational radiation limits the rotation rate. The proposed mechanism is that anisotropic accretion onto the star creates a temperature gradient in the crust of the neutron star, which in turn creates a gradient in the mass of the nucleus that is in local equilibrium, and this in turn creates a density gradient that leads, via the rotation of the star, to the emission of gravitational radiation. This radiation carries away angular momentum, balancing that which is accreted, so that the star remains at an approximately constant speed.
According to the model, the gravitational wave luminosity of the star is proportional to the measured
flux of X-rays, since the X-ray flux is itself proportional to the accreted angular momentum that has to be
carried away by the gravitational waves. If this model is correct, then the X-ray source Sco X-1 might be
marginally detectable by advanced interferometers, and other similar systems could also be
candidates [385].
Neutron stars are known to astronomy through the pulsar phenomenon. As radio surveys improve, the number of known pulsars is pushing up toward 2000. There is a public catalogue on the web [57]. But the galactic population of neutron stars is orders of magnitude larger, perhaps as many as 108. Most are much older than typical pulsars, which seem to stop emitting after a few million years. X-ray surveys reveal a number of unidentified point sources, which might be hot neutron stars, but older neutron stars are probably not even hot enough to show up in such surveys.
Gravitational wave observations have the potential to discover more neutron stars, but in the foreseeable future the numbers will not be large. Spinning neutron stars can be found in searches for continuous-wave signals, but there is no a priori reason to expect significant deformations that would lead to large gravitational wave amplitudes. One mechanism, proposed by Cutler [128], is that a large buried toroidal magnetic field could, by pulling in the waist of a spinning star, turn it into a prolate spheroid. This is classically unstable and would tip over and spin about a short axis, emitting gravitational waves. Millisecond pulsars could, in principle, be spinning down through the emission of gravitational waves in this way. Only deep observations by Advanced LIGO could begin to probe this possibility.
In fact, strong emission of gravitational waves is in some sense counterproductive, since it causes a neutron star to spin down and move out of the observing band quickly. This places important limits on the likely distribution of observable continuous-wave amplitudes from neutron stars [220]. This is important input into the blind searches for such signals being conducted by the LSC.
Radio observations of pulsars have, of course, revealed a fascinating population of binary systems containing neutron stars, including the original Hulse–Taylor pulsar [203] and the double pulsar PSR J0737-3039 [248]. But radio surveys only cover a small fraction of our galaxy, so there may be many more interesting and exotic systems waiting to be discovered, including neutron stars orbiting black holes. In fact, not all neutron stars are pulsars, so there are likely to be nearby binary systems containing neutron stars that are not known as pulsars at all.
LISA has enough sensitivity to detect all such binaries in the galaxy whose gravitational wave emission is above 1 mHz, i.e., with orbital periods shorter than half an hour. Below that frequency, systems may just blend into the confusion noise of the white-dwarf background, unless they are particularly close. The Hulse–Taylor system is a bit below the LISA band, and even its higher harmonics are likely to be masked by the dense confusion noise of white-dwarf galaxies at low frequencies. Double pulsars should be detectable by LISA with low SNR (around five in five years) above the confusion background at a frequency of 0.2 mHz [211]. In all, LISA might detect several tens or even hundreds of double neutron-star systems, and potentially even a handful of double black hole binaries.
Neutron stars are the fossils of massive stars, and so a population census of binaries can help normalize
our galaxy’s star-formation rate in the past. The mass distribution of such systems will also be of interest:
do all neutron-star binaries have stars whose masses are near , or is this only true of
systems that become pulsars? LISA observations are likely to illuminate many puzzles of stellar
evolution.
Finally, it is possible to search for gravitational waves from individual spinning neutron stars in binary systems. Although more rare than isolated neutron stars, these systems might have a different history and a different distribution of amplitudes. Searches are planned by the LSC, but they are difficult to do, since the parameter space is even larger than for isolated pulsars.
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