Probing neutron star interiors with pulsar glitches

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent theoretical advances in understanding pulsar glitches, which are sudden frequency jumps used to probe the superfluid interior of neutron stars, highlighting the challenges and observational constraints.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of recent microscopic and macroscopic models of pulsar glitches and discusses how observations constrain these models.

Findings

Recent progress in microscopic superfluid vortex modeling

Advances in macroscopic neutron star interior simulations

Observational data constrains superfluid models

Abstract

Pulsar glitches are thought to be probes of the superfluid interior of neutron stars. These sudden jumps in frequency observed in many pulsars are generally assumed to be the macroscopic manifestation of superfluid vortex motion on a microscopic scale. Resolving and modelling such phenomena on the scale of a neutron star is, however, a challenging problem which still remains open, fifty years after the discovery of pulsars. In this article I will review recent theoretical progress, both on the microscopic level and on the macroscopic level, and discuss which constraints on the models can be provided by observations.