A simple mechanism for the anti-glitch observed in magnetar 1E 2259+586

Abstract

In this short communication we present a simple internal mechanism that accounts for the recently observed anti-glitch in magnetar 1E 2259+586. We propose that the decay of an internal toroidal magnetic field component would de-stabilize an originally stable prolate star configuration. Then, the subsequent rearrangement of the stellar structure would give rise to a "more spherical" configuration, resulting in a sudden spin-down of the whole star. We present here some order of magnitude calculation to give confidence to this scenario, using the simplest analytical stellar model and let more detailed calculations for a more technical future paper.