Gravitational radiation from pulsar glitches

Abstract

The nonaxisymmetric Ekman flow excited inside a neutron star following a rotational glitch is calculated analytically including stratification and compressibility. For the largest glitches, the gravitational wave strain produced by the hydrodynamic mass quadrupole moment approaches the sensitivity range of advanced long-baseline interferometers. It is shown that the viscosity, compressibility and orientation of the star can be inferred in principle from the width and amplitude ratios of the Fourier peaks (at the spin frequency and its first harmonic) observed in the gravitational wave spectrum in the + and × polarizations. These transport coefficients constrain the equation of state of bulk ..