An Anti-Glitch in a Magnetar
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An Anti-Glitch in a Magnetar Robert F. Archibald Master of Science Department of Physics McGill University Montreal,Quebec 2013-08-15 A Thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science c Robert Frederic Archibald, 2013 DEDICATION For the family. ii Abstract Magnetars are neutron stars showing dramatic X-ray and soft γ-ray outbursting behaviour that is thought to be powered by their intense internal magnetic fields. Like conventional neutron stars in the form of radio pulsars, magnetars show sudden changes in their rotation rate, called \glitches," during which angular momentum is believed to be transferred between the solid outer crust and the superfluid component of the inner crust. Hitherto, the several hundred observed glitches in radio pulsars and magnetars have involved a sudden spin-up of the star, due presumably to the interior superfluid rotating faster than the crust. In this thesis, we report on X-ray timing observations of the magnetar 1E 2259+586 , using the Swift X-ray Telescope, which we show exhibited a clear \anti-glitch" { a sudden spin down. We show that this event, like some previous magnetar spin-up glitches, was accompanied by multiple X-ray radiative changes and a significant spin-down rate change. This event, if of origin internal to the star, is unpredicted in models of neutron star spin-down and is suggestive of differential rotation in the neutron star, further supporting the need for a rethinking of glitch theory for all neutron stars. iii ABREG´ E´ Les magn´etarssont des ´etoiles`aneutrons caract´eris´eespar une ´emissionvio- lente de rayons X et de rayons gamma doux. Cette ´emissionpar sursauts serait aliment´eepar leur puissants champs magntiques internes. A` l'instar des ´etoiles`a neutrons conventionnelles se trouvant sous la forme de pulsars radios, les magn´etars affichent des changements soudains dans leur vitesse de rotation, appel´es`glitches'. Durant ces changements, un transfer de moment angulaire se ferait entre la cro^ute solide ext´erieureet la composante superfluide de la cro^uteint´erieure. A` ce jour, les quelques centaines de `glitches' observ´esdans les pulsars radios et les magn´etarsse sont transform´esen acc´el´erationsoudaine de l'´etoile,un ph´enom`enevraisemblable- ment d^uau fait que la rotation du superfluide int´erieurest plus rapide que celle de la cro^ute.Dans ce travail, nous rapportons des observations du magn´etar1E 2259+586 r´ealis´ees l'aide du T´elescope `arayons X Swift d´emontrant clairement un comporte- ment d'anti-glitch, c’est-`a-direun ralentissement abrupt de la vitesse de rotation de l'´etoile.Nous montrons que cet ´ev`enement, tout comme d'autres `glitches' observ´es pr´ec´edemment, a ´et´eaccompagn´epar de multiples changements dans l'´emissionde rayons X et par une d´ecroissancedu spin de l'´etoile.Ce comportement, s'il est caus par des m´ecanismesstellaires internes, n'est pas pr´editpar les mod`elesde varia- tion de vitesse de rotation des ´etoiles`aneutrons et sugg`erel'existence de rotation diff´erentielle, ce qui supporte l'id´eeque la th`eorie du `glitch' dans les ´etoiles`aneu- trons doit ^etrerepens´ee. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION................................... ii Abstract....................................... iii ABREG´ E´...................................... iv LIST OF TABLES................................. vii LIST OF FIGURES................................ viii PREFACE..................................... ix STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY AND CONTRIBUTION OF AUTHORS.x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................ xi 1 Neutron Stars.................................1 1.1 Theoretical Objects..........................1 1.2 Observational Confirmation of the Existence of Neutron Stars..2 1.3 Canonical Pulsar...........................2 1.4 Observational Classes of Pulsars...................5 1.5 Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars.....5 1.6 Unification: The Magnetar Model..................8 2 Pulsar Timing................................. 11 2.1 Timing................................. 11 2.1.1 TEMPO2............................ 15 2.2 Glitches................................ 16 2.2.1 The Starquake Model..................... 18 2.2.2 The Superfluidic Coupling Model.............. 19 2.3 Glitches in Magnetars......................... 21 v 3 X-ray Astronomy............................... 22 3.1 X-ray Spectroscopy.......................... 23 3.2 Mission History............................ 24 3.3 The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission................ 27 4 An Anti-Glitch in 1E 2259+586....................... 30 4.1 Introduction.............................. 30 4.2 Observations.............................. 33 4.2.1 Swift X-ray Telescope Observations............. 33 4.2.2 Expanded Very Large Array Observation.......... 41 4.2.3 Chandra X-ray Observation.................. 42 4.3 Discussion............................... 42 4.3.1 Previous Evidence for Anti-Glitches............. 42 4.3.2 Physical Origins of the Anti-Glitch.............. 43 5 Outlook and Conclusions........................... 46 References...................................... 49 vi LIST OF TABLES Table page 4{1 Properties of 1E 2259+586........................ 32 4{2 Timing parameters for 1E 2259+586.................... 38 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 1{1 P − P_ diagram..............................6 2{1 Typical pulse profiles........................... 13 2{2 Pulsar Glitches.............................. 16 3{1 The Swift Satellite............................ 29 4{1 XMM image of CTB 109......................... 31 4{2 Pulse profiles of 1E 2259+586...................... 36 4{3 Timing and X-ray flux properties of 1E 2259+586 around the 2012 event................................... 39 4{4 Timing residuals for 1E 2259+586.................... 40 viii PREFACE This thesis contains a manuscript published in Nature. This work was done in collaboration with other authors at various institutions. Acknowedgements from the original manuscript follow. Acknowledgements for \An Anti-Glitch in a Magnetar" (Chapter4), Archibald et al. 2013: Victoria Kaspi acknowledges support from the Natural Sciences and En- gineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant and John C. Polanyi Award, from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, from Fonds de Recherche Nature et Technologies Qu´ebec, from the Canada Research Chairs Program, and from the Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology. David Tsang was supported by the Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Kostas N. Gourgouliatos was supported by the Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique du Qu´ebec. We thank Heidi Medlin and Joseph Gelfand for help with the EVLA observation. We thank D. Eichler, B. Link, M. Lyutikov and C. Thompson for useful discussions. We acknowledge the use of public data from the Swift data archive. ix STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY AND CONTRIBUTION OF AUTHORS The university guidelines for a manuscript-based thesis state that \ candidates have the option of including, as part of the thesis, the text of one or more papers submitted, or to be submitted, for publication, or the clearly duplicated text of one or more published papers." In accordance with the above, the results presented in this thesis is original work that was published in the following refereed article: The manuscript \An Anti-Glitch in a Magnetar" (Chapter4), Archibald et al. 2013. The paper discribes the discovery of an \anti-glitch" in a magnetar and dis- cusses possible physical origins of such an event. I performed the data analysis on the Swift data and wrote portions of the analysis software. Victoria Kaspi designed the study, was the project leader for the Swift data, proposed for the Chandra data, assisted with the interpretation of the data analysis, as well as with the theoretical implications. C.Y. Ng proposed for the VLA data and reduced them and the Chandra data. Kostas N. Gourgouliatos and David Tsang assisted with the theoretical implications. Paul Scholz wrote significant portions of the Swift analysis software. A. P. Beardmore, N. Gehrels, & J. A. Kennea assisted with Swift observations and data analysis. I wrote the paper with guidance from Victoria Kaspi and with significant input from all co-authors. x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Victoria Kaspi for taking me on as a student, her guidance throughout the past two years have been invaluable. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the other members of the group for many enlightening conversations, and general merriment during my time here. I would also like to thank Gabrielle Simard for translating the abstract. xi CHAPTER 1 Neutron Stars 1.1 Theoretical Objects In the early 1930s, Fritz Zwicky & Walter Baade were struggling to explain the massive amounts of energy given off by supernovae { the sudden appearance of objects 10 in the sky which reached ∼ 10 L . At the same time physicists were unraveling the mysteries of the inner workings of the atom, and had just experimentally confirmed the existence of the neutron (Chadwick, 1932). Zwicky and Baade postulated that the energy of a supernova could then come from the compacting of a stellar core from normal stellar densities into a gas of neutrons forming a \neutron star"- and in so doing, convert ∼ 10% of the stellar-core rest mass into energy (Baade and Zwicky, 1934). Lev Davidovich Landau also postulated the existence of \dense stars that look like one giant nucleus" (Landau and Peierls,