The gravitational wave signal of the short rise fling of galactic run away pulsars

TL;DR

This paper explores the gravitational wave signals generated by rapid acceleration during pulsar birth kicks, suggesting they are detectable and could provide insights into supernova mechanisms and pulsar dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a model for GW signals from short rise fling pulsars and estimates their detectability with current interferometers, linking pulsar kicks to GW observations.

Findings

Detected potential GW signals from RAPs during birth kicks.

Estimated energy distribution between pulsar spin and kick velocity.

Proposed pulsar GW signals as benchmarks for supernova core collapse.

Abstract

Determination of pulsar parallaxes and proper motions addresses fundamental astrophysical open issues. Here, the ATNF Catalog is scrutinized searching for pulsar distances and proper motions. For a sample of 212 run away pulsars (RAPs), which currently run across the Galaxy at very high speed and undergo large displacements, some gravitational-wave (GW) signals produced by such present accelerations appear to be detectable after calibration against the Advanced LIGO (LIGO II). Motivated by this insight, we address the issue of the pulsar kick at birth. We show that during the short rise fling each run away pulsar (RAP) generates a GW signal with characteristic amplitude and frequency that makes it detectable by current GW interferometers. For a realistic analysis, an efficiency parameter is introduced to quantify the expenditure of the rise fling kinetic energy, which is estimated from the linear momentum conservation law applied to the supernova explosion that kicks out the pulsar. The remaining energy is supposed to be used to make the star to spin. Thus, a comparison with the spin of ATNF pulsars having velocity in the interval 400-500 km s$^{-1}$ is performed. The resulting difference suggests that other mechanisms should dissipate part of that energy to produce the observed pulsar spin periods. Meanwhile, the kick phenomenon may also occur in globular and open star clusters at the formation or disruption of very short period compact binary systems wherein abrupt velocity and acceleration similar to those given to RAPs during the short rise fling can be imparted to each orbital partner. Thus pulsar astrometry from micro- to nano-arsec scales might be of much help. In case of a supernova, the RAP GW signal could be a benchmark for the GW signal from the core collapse.