Zeeman effect in oscillations of magnetars with toroidal magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the Zeeman effect influences magneto-elastic oscillations in magnetars with confined toroidal magnetic fields, revealing a richer spectrum that can aid in interpreting observational data.

Contribution

It introduces the first analysis of non-axially symmetric magneto-elastic oscillations in magnetars with toroidal fields, highlighting the Zeeman effect's impact on the oscillation spectrum.

Findings

Zeeman effect significantly enriches the oscillation spectrum.

Non-axially symmetric oscillations exhibit complex spectral features.

Potential to interpret observed QPOs in magnetar flares.

Abstract

Magnetars are neutron stars with superstrong magnetic fields. Some of them (soft-gamma repeaters, SGRs) demonstrate gigantic flares which nature is still unclear. At decay phase of such flares one often observes quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) which are treated as stellar oscillations triggered by the flares. We study, for the first time, magneto-elastic oscillations of magnetars possessing toroidal magnetic fields confined in the stellar crust, without imposing axial symmetry of perturbations. We show that the Zeeman effect makes the oscillation spectrum much richer than for axially symmetric oscillations. The main properties of theoretical QPO spectra are discussed as well as their potential to interpret observations and explore magnetar physics.