On the relevance of the r-mode instability for accreting neutron stars and white dwarfs

Abstract

We present a case study for the relevance of the r-mode instability for accreting compact stars. Our estimates are based on approximations that facilitate back-of-the-envelope calculations. We discuss two different cases: 1) For recycled millisecond pulsars we argue that the r-mode instability may be active at rotation periods longer than the Kepler period (which provides the dynamical limit on rotation) as long as the core temperature is larger than about $2\times10^5$ K. Our estimates suggest that the instability may have played a role in the evolution of the fastest spinning pulsars, and that it may be presently active in the recently discovered 2.49 ms X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 as well as the rapidly spinning neutron stars observed in low mass X-ray binaries. This provides a new explanation for the remarkably similar rotation periods inferred from kHz quasi-periodic oscillations in the LMXBs. The possibility that the rotation of recycled pulsars may be gravitational-radiation limited is interesting because the gravitational waves from a neutron star rotating at the instability limit may well be detectable with the new generation of interferometric detectors. 2) We also consider white dwarfs, and find that the r-mode instability may possibly be active in short period white dwarfs. Our order of magnitude estimates (for a white dwarf of $M=M_\odot$ and $R=0.01 R_\odot$ composed of $C^{12}$) show that the instability could be operating for rotational periods shorter than $P\approx 27-33$ s. This number is in interesting agreement with the observed periods ($>28$ s) of the rapidly spinning DQ Herculis stars. However, we find that the instability grows too slowly to affect the rotation of these stars significantly .