1:00pm Monday January 11 in the 3 East Theory Conference Room
Strongly accreting, rapidly rotating neutron stars could be emitters of detectible gravitational waves. I will review two scenarios: In the first scenario, proposed recently by Bildsten, a lateral temperature variation in a neutron-star crust creates non-axisymmetric vertical shift of an electron-capture layer and thus induces a quadrupole moment. This non-zero quadrupole moment in the rapidly rotating neutron star is responsible for emission of Gravitational Waves. In the second scenario, proposed recently by Andersson et al and Bildsten, the neutron-star r-modes (Rossby waves) become unstable, grow and emit Gravitational Waves. One of likely implications of this proposal is that the thermo-gravitational runaway will occur, in which the r-mode amplitude and the temperature of the neutron star grow simultaneously on a timescale of a few months.