Coupling of radial and non-radial oscillations of relativistic stars: gauge-invariant formalism

Abstract

Linear perturbation theory is appropriate to describe small oscillations of stars, while a mild non-linearity is still tractable perturbatively but requires to consider mode coupling. It is natural to start to look at this problem by considering the coupling between linear radial and non-radial modes. Radial pulsations of a spherical compact objects do not per se emit gravitational waves but, if the coupling is efficient in driving and possibly amplifying the non-radial modes, gravitational radiation could then be produced to a significant level. In this paper we develop the relativistic formalism to study the coupling of radial and non-radial first order perturbations of a compact spherical star. From a mathematical point of view, it is convenient to treat the two sets of perturbations as separately parametrized, using a 2-parameter perturbative expansion of the metric, the energy-momentum tensor and Einstein equations in which $\lambda$ is associated with the radial modes, $\epsilon$ with the non-radial perturbations, and the $\lambda\epsilon$ terms describe the coupling. This approach provides a well-defined framework to consider the gauge dependence of perturbations, allowing us to use $\epsilon$ order gauge-invariant non-radial variables on the static background and to define new second order $\lambda\epsilon$ gauge-invariant variables describing the non-linear coupling. We present the evolution and constraint equations for our variables outlining the setup for numerical computations, and briefly discuss the surface boundary conditions in terms of the second order $\lambda\epsilon$ Lagrangian pressure perturbation.