Gravitational waves from rapidly rotating neutron stars

Abstract

Rapidly rotating neutron stars in Low Mass X-ray Binaries have been proposed as an interesting source of gravitational waves. In this chapter we present estimates of the gravitational wave emission for various scenarios, given the (electromagnetically) observed characteristics of these systems. First of all we focus on the r-mode instability and show that a “minimal” neutron star model (which does not incorporate exotica in the core, dynamically important magnetic fields or superfluid degrees of freedom), is not consistent with observations.We then present estimates of both thermally induced and magnetically sustained mountains in the crust. In general magnetic mountains are likely to be det..