Inspiraling Corrugation-Induced Quantum Effects on Neutron Star Binary Plane

TL;DR

This paper investigates quantum effects induced by inspiraling corrugations in neutron star binary planes, revealing marginal but theoretically significant modifications to orbital decay and gravitational wave frequencies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of dynamical gravitational Casimir effects on neutron star binaries using path-integral methods, highlighting their impact on orbital dynamics.

Findings

Dynamical Casimir effects cause a dissipative force on the binary system.

The energy dissipation rate is extremely small, around 10^{-70} eV/s.

Corrections to orbital decay are marginal but theoretically insightful.

Abstract

We use the path-integral formula and investigate some dynamical quantum effects induced by the inspiraling lateral corrugation of orbital plane in gravitationally bound neutron star (NS) binaries, with orbital separation of $10^9$ m. Based on Dewitt's approach, we calculate the gravitational Casimir energy cost of the binary plane, which consists of statically gravitational effects and deformation-induced effects. It is found that the static effects include a term coming from the self-gravity of the orbital plane and the contribution of Newtonian gravitational potential of the binary system. While the deformation-induced effect also results from two parts, i.e. the instability of orbital binding energy, scaling as $\frac{1}{(R-r)^2}$, and the dynamically Casimir energy cost of the orbital binding energy, decaying as $\frac{1}{(R-r)^4}$. The dynamically gravitational Casimir phenomena and the corresponding energy cost modify the spiral-in orbital motion of the binary and thus the frequency of released gravitational waves (GWs). We consider the mechanical response of two NS components and qualitatively study the corrections to the orbital motion of the system and the GW frequencies. It is found that the dynamical Casimir effects exert a dissipative force on the binary plane, depending on the frequency of GWs. The resultant dissipation may enhance with the decaying separation and increasing GW frequencies, which subsequently accelerates the orbital decay of the binary. However, the dissipation rate just has an order of $10^{-70}$ eV/s. So the corrections to the dynamics of NS binaries are very marginal, by considering the wide separation, the cosmological coalescence time, and low-frequency GWs of the system.