Toroidal Magnetic Fields in Type II Superconducting Neutron Stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates the magnetic field configurations in type II superconducting neutron stars, analyzing their shape distortions, stability, and specific instabilities, with implications for stellar precession and magnetic behavior.

Contribution

It extends stability criteria to superconducting media and derives conditions for specific instabilities, providing new insights into neutron star magnetic field dynamics.

Findings

Neutron stars with toroidal fields become prolate and can precess.

Stability criteria are extended to superconducting conditions.

Identifies growth rates and conditions for a specific superconductor instability.

Abstract

We determine constraints on the form of axisymmetric toroidal magnetic fields dictated by hydrostatic balance in a type II superconducting neutron star with a barotropic equation of state. Using Lagrangian perturbation theory, we find the quadrupolar distortions due to such fields for various models of neutron stars with type II superconducting and normal regions. We find that the star becomes prolate and can be sufficiently distorted to display precession with a period of the order of years. We also study the stability of such fields using an energy principle, which allows us to extend the stability criteria established by R. J. Tayler for normal conductors to more general media with magnetic free energy that depends on density and magnetic induction, such as type II superconductors. We also derive the growth rate and instability conditions for a specific instability of type II superconductors, first discussed by P. Muzikar, C. J. Pethick and P. H. Roberts, using a local analysis based on perturbations around a uniform background.