Persistent gravitational radiation from glitching pulsars II. Updated scaling with vortex number

Abstract

Superfluid vortices pinned to nuclear lattice sites or magnetic flux tubes in a neutron star evolve abruptly through a sequence of metastable spatial configurations, punctuated by unpinning avalanches associated with rotational glitches, as the stellar crust spins down electromagnetically. The metastable configurations are approximately but not exactly axisymmetric, causing the emission of persistent, quasimonochromatic, current quadrupole gravitational radiation. The characteristic gravitational wave strain h 0 as a function of the spin frequency f and distance D from the Earth is bounded above by h 0 = 1 . 2 + 1 . 3 -0 . 9 ×10 -32 ( f / 30 Hz ) 2 . 5 ( D/ 1 kpc ) -1 , corresponding to a Po..