Gravitational waves from mountains in newly born millisecond magnetars

TL;DR

This paper models the spin evolution and gravitational wave emission of newly formed millisecond magnetars, considering fallback accretion and 'mountain' formation, with implications for gravitational wave detection and gamma-ray burst observations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model of magnetar spin evolution including fallback accretion and mountain formation, predicting gravitational wave signals for different formation scenarios.

Findings

Magnetars from stellar collapse can accrete up to 1 solar mass and survive ~50 seconds.

Gravitational wave strain can reach ~10^{-23} at 1 Mpc for collapse-formed magnetars.

Merger-formed magnetars accrete less mass and emit weaker gravitational waves, but survive longer.

Abstract

In this paper we study the spin-evolution and gravitational-wave luminosity of a newly born millisecond magnetar, formed either after the collapse of a massive star or after the merger of two neutron stars. In both cases we consider the effect of fallback accretion, and consider the evolution of the system due to the different torques acting on the star, namely the spin up torque due to accretion and spin-down torques due to magnetic dipole radiation, neutrino emission, and gravitational wave emission linked to the formation of a `mountain' on the accretion poles. Initially the spin period is mostly affected by the dipole radiation, but at later times accretion spin the star up rapidly. We find that a magnetar formed after the collapse of a massive star can accrete up to 1 M_{\odot} , and survive on the order of 50 s before collapsing to a black hole. The gravitational wave strain, for an object located at 1 Mpc, is h_c \sim 10^{-23} at kHz frequencies, making this a potential target for next generation ground based detectors. A magnetar formed after a binary neutron star merger, on the other hand, accretes at the most 0.2 M_{\odot}, and emits gravitational waves with a lower maximum strain of the order of h_c \sim 10^{-24} , but also survives for much longer times, and may possibly be associated with the X-ray plateau observed in the light curve of a number of short gamma-ray burst.