Crust-core coupling and r-mode damping in neutron stars: a toy model

Abstract

R-modes in neutron stars with crusts are damped by viscous friction at the crust-core boundary. The magnitude of this damping, evaluated by Bildsten and Ushomirsky (BU) under the assumption of a perfectly rigid crust, sets the maximum spin frequency for a neutron star spun up by accretion in a Low-Mass X-ray binary (LMXB). In this paper we explore the mechanical coupling between the core r-modes and the elastic crust, using a toy model of a constant density neutron star with a constant shear modulus crust. We find that, at spin frequencies in excess of ~50 Hz, the r-modes strongly penetrate the crust. This reduces the relative motion (slippage) between the crust and the core compared to the rigid crust limit. We therefore revise down, by as much as a factor of 10^2-10^3, the damping rate computed by BU, significantly reducing the maximal possible spin frequency of neutron star with a solid crust. The dependence of the crust-core slippage on the spin frequency is complicated, and is very sensitive to the physical thickness of the crust. If the crust is sufficiently thick, the curve of the critical spin frequency for the onset of the r-mode instability becomes multi-valued for some temperatures; this is related to the avoided crossings between the r-mode and the higher-order torsional modes in the crust. The critical frequencies are comparable to the observed spins of neutron stars in LMXBs and millisecond pulsars.