Eigenmodes of elastic vibrations of quaking neutron star encoded in QPOs on light curves of SGR flares

TL;DR

This paper models elastic vibrations in neutron star crusts to explain observed QPOs in SGR flares, identifying specific vibrational modes responsible for low-frequency oscillations.

Contribution

It applies a Newtonian solid-mechanical model to classify neutron star vibrations and links specific modes to observed QPOs, providing new insights into their physical origin.

Findings

Low-frequency QPOs are likely due to nodeless dipole torsional and spheroidal vibrations.

The model successfully explains QPO frequencies in the 30-200 Hz range.

Physical origin of some low-frequency QPOs is clarified.

Abstract

The Newtonian solid-mechanical theory of nodeless spheroidal and torsional of elastic seismic vibrations trapped in the crust of a quaking neutron star is outlined and applied to the modal classification of the quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) of X-ray luminosity in the aftermath of giant flares in SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14. The presented analysis relies heavily on the Samuelsson-Andersson identification of the QPOs frequency from the range 30-200 Hz with those for torsional nodeless vibrations of multipole degree in the interval 2-12. Based on this identification, which is used to fix the input parameters entering the obtained spectral formulae, we compute frequency spectrum of nodeless spheroidal elastic vibrations. Particular attention is given to the low-frequency QPOs in the data for SGR 1806-20 whose physical origin has been called into question. Our calculations suggest that these unspecified QPOs are due to nodeless dipole torsional (18 Hz) and dipole spheroidal (26 Hz) elastic shear vibrations.