Relativistic tidal properties of neutron stars

Abstract

We study the various linear responses of neutron stars to external relativistic tidal fields. We focus on three different tidal responses, associated to three different tidal coefficients: (i) a gravito-electric-type coefficient G\mu_\ell=[length]^{2\ell+1} measuring the \ell^{th}-order mass multipolar moment GM_{a_1... a_\ell} induced in a star by an external \ell^{th}-order gravito-electric tidal field G_{a_1... a_\ell}; (ii) a gravito-magnetic-type coefficient G\sigma_\ell=[length]^{2\ell+1} measuring the \ell^{th} spin multipole moment G S_{a_1... a_\ell} induced in a star by an external \ell^{th}-order gravito-magnetic tidal field H_{a_1... a_\ell}; and (iii) a dimensionless ``shape'' Love number h_\ell measuring the distortion of the shape of the surface of a star by an external \ell^{th}-order gravito-electric tidal field. All the dimensionless tidal coefficients G\mu_\ell/R^{2\ell+1}, G\sigma_\l/R^{2\ell+1} and h_\ell (where R is the radius of the star) are found to have a strong sensitivity to the value of the star's ``compactness'' c\equiv GM/(c_0^2 R) (where we indicate by c_0 the speed of light). In particular, G\mu_\l/R^{2\l+1}\sim k_\ell is found to strongly decrease, as c increases, down to a zero value as c is formally extended to the ``black-hole (BH) limit'' c^{BH}=1/2. The shape Love number h_\ell is also found to significantly decrease as c increases, though it does not vanish in the formal limit c\to c^{BH}. The formal vanishing of \mu_\ell and \sigma_\ell as c\to c^{BH} is a consequence of the no-hair properties of black holes; this suggests, but in no way proves, that the effective action describing the gravitational interactions of black holes may not need to be augmented by nonminimal worldline couplings.