Modelling strains and stresses in continuously stratified rotating neutron stars

Abstract

Abstract We introduce a Newtonian model for the deformations of a compressible, auto-gravitating and continuously stratified neutron star. The present framework can be applied to a number of astrophysical scenarios as it allows to account for a great variety of loading forces. In this first analysis, the model is used to study the impact of a frozen adiabatic index in the estimate of rotation-induced deformations: we assume a polytropic equation of state for the matter at equilibrium but, since chemical reactions may be slow, the perturbations with respect to the unstressed configuration are modeled by using a different adiabatic index. We quantify the impact of a departure of the adiabatic index from its equilibrium value on the stressed stellar configuration and we find that a small perturbation can cause large variations both in displacements and strains. As a first practical application, we estimate the strain developed between two large glitches in the Vela pulsar showing that, starting from an initial unstressed configuration, it is not possible to reach the breaking threshold of the crust, namely to trigger a starquake. In this sense, the hypothesis that starquakes could trigger the unpinning of superfluid vortices is challenged and, for the quake to be a possible trigger, the solid crust must never fully relax after a glitch, making the sequence of starquakes in a neutron star an history-dependent process.