Pulsar Glitch

In 1969, scientists noticed an abrupt and brief increase in the rotation rate of a pulsar called as pulsar glitch.

When heavy stars die, their cores implode and if they’re heavy enough, they become black holes. Else, they collapse to form a ball of neutrons called as neutron stars.

Pulsars – They are rotating neutron stars (super-dense object) whose rotation rate slowed over time.
Emission of radio signals – The energy saved by reducing the rotation rate was used to accelerate electric charges outside the star, producing the radio signals that are emitted near the poles.
It forms a cone that sweeps past the earth with every rotation.

Pulsar glitch – An abrupt and brief increase in the rotation rate of the pulsar before relaxing to the original value slowly.

The 1st pulsar was discovered in 1967 and 1^st pulsar glitch was observed in 1969. Till date, we have spotted more than 3,000 pulsars and around 700 pulsar glitches.

This slow post-glitch relaxation hinted that the neutrons inside the star were superfluid.

Superfluids, a slippery, frictionless state which when set in motion inside a container will keep moving around.

Origin of Pulsar Glitch

The neutron star is a 20-km-wide sphere with a solid crust and a core. The crust, believed to be a lattice of iron-like nuclei, is interspersed with neutron superfluid. The core predominantly contains the superfluid, and no solid parts.

A superfluid in a rotating system creates vortices which might be attached to the nuclei of the crust and attain less energy.

Vortices are a mass of air, water, etc. that turns around very fast and pulls things into its centre.

The phenomenon of vortices ‘sticking’ to the nuclei is called pinning.

By radiation, the pulsar loses energy and slows down the rotation of crust but the pinned vortices maintains higher speed similar to the speed of the superfluid’s rotation inside.
This speed difference creates a force to overcome pinning and vortices are thrown outward, reducing the speed of the superfluid.
The angular momentum lost by the superfluid is gained by the crust leading to brief increase in rotation called as a glitch in the pulsar.

Angular momentum is defined as the total quantity of motion possessed by the rotating moving body.

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