The Thermal Response of a Pulsar Glitch : The Non-spherical Symmetric Case

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-spherical thermal evolution of pulsars after glitches, revealing that detectable hot spots can form and vary in intensity, providing insights into the pulsar's internal physics and equation of state.

Contribution

It introduces a non-spherical relativistic thermal model for pulsar glitches, showing significant differences from spherical models and predicting observable hot spots.

Findings

Detectable hot spots can form after pulsar glitches.

Thermal evolution differs markedly from spherical symmetry assumptions.

X-ray emission variations can inform on the equation of state.

Abstract

We study the thermal evolution of a pulsar after a glitch in which the energy is released from a relative compact region. A set of relativistic thermal transport and energy balance equations is used to study the thermal evolution, without making the assumption of spherical symmetry. We use an exact cooling model to solve this set of differential equtions. Our results differ significantly from those obtained under the assumption of spherical symmetry. Even for young pulsars with a hot core like the Vela pulsar, we find that a detectable hot spot can be observed after a glitch. The results suggest that the intensity variation and the relative phases of hard X-ray emissions in different epoches can provide important information on the equation of state.