Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Oscillations of rotating magnetized neutron stars with purely toroidal magnetic fields

S. K. Lander, D. I. Jones, A. Passamonti

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We investigate the oscillation spectrum of rotating Newtonian neutron stars endowed with purely toroidal magnetic fields, using a time-evolution code to evolve linear perturbations in the Cowling approximation. The background star is generated by numerically solving the magnetohydrodynamics equilibrium equations and may be non-spherical by virtue of both rotation and magnetic effects; hence, our perturbations and background are fully consistent. Whilst the background field is purely toroidal, the perturbed field is mixed poloidal-toroidal. From Fourier analysis of the perturbations, we are able to identify a number of magnetically restored Alfvén (or a) modes. We show that in a rotating star pure inertial and a-modes are replaced by hybrid magneto-inertial modes, which reduce to a-modes in the non-rotating limit and inertial modes in the non-magnetic limit. We show that the r-mode instability is suppressed by magnetic fields in sufficiently slowly rotating stars. In addition, we determine magnetic frequency shifts in the f-mode. We discuss the astrophysical relevance of our results, in particular for magnetar oscillations.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)318-328
Number of pages11
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume405
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2010

Keywords

  • MHD
  • Stars: magnetic fields
  • Stars: neutron
  • Stars: oscillations
  • Stars: rotation

Cite this