Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Verma, Paritosh, Bhattacharyya, Sudip
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.15200
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909968278487040
author Verma, Paritosh
Bhattacharyya, Sudip
author_facet Verma, Paritosh
Bhattacharyya, Sudip
contents A pulsar, i.e., a spinning neutron star, with a deformation could emit gravitational waves continuously. Such continuous waves, which have not been detected yet, will be very useful to study gravitational physics and to probe the extreme physics of neutron stars. While typically such waves from a pulsar are estimated considering an overall stellar ellipticity, there can be multiple irregularities or mountains in the stellar crust that the gravity of the star cannot smooth. In this paper, we consider this realistic situation and compute the strain, power, torque and the pulsar spin-down rate due to multiple mountains supported by the stellar crust. Here, we consider astronomically motivated mountain distributions and use the Brans-Dicke theory of gravity which has three polarization states: two tensors dominated by the time-varying quadrupole moment and one scalar dominated by the time-varying dipole moment. We also give the limiting results for general relativity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_15200
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multiple mountains on a pulsar: implications for gravitational waves and the spin-down rate
Verma, Paritosh
Bhattacharyya, Sudip
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
A pulsar, i.e., a spinning neutron star, with a deformation could emit gravitational waves continuously. Such continuous waves, which have not been detected yet, will be very useful to study gravitational physics and to probe the extreme physics of neutron stars. While typically such waves from a pulsar are estimated considering an overall stellar ellipticity, there can be multiple irregularities or mountains in the stellar crust that the gravity of the star cannot smooth. In this paper, we consider this realistic situation and compute the strain, power, torque and the pulsar spin-down rate due to multiple mountains supported by the stellar crust. Here, we consider astronomically motivated mountain distributions and use the Brans-Dicke theory of gravity which has three polarization states: two tensors dominated by the time-varying quadrupole moment and one scalar dominated by the time-varying dipole moment. We also give the limiting results for general relativity.
title Multiple mountains on a pulsar: implications for gravitational waves and the spin-down rate
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.15200