Gravitational Waves from the Dynamical Bar Instability in a Rapidly Rotating Star.pdfVIP

Gravitational Waves from the Dynamical Bar Instability in a Rapidly Rotating Star J. David Brown Department of Physics North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695–8202 (February 7, 2008) A rapidly rotating, axisymmetric star can be dynamically unstable to an m = 2 “bar” mode that transforms the star from a disk shape to an elongated bar. The fate of such a bar–shaped star is uncertain. Some previous numerical studies indicate that the bar is short lived, lasting for only a few bar–rotation periods, while other studies suggest that the bar is relatively long lived. This paper contains the results of a numerical simulation of a rapidly rotating γ = 5/3 fluid star. The simulation shows that the bar shape is long lived: once the bar is established, the star retains this shape for more than 10 bar–rotation periods, through the end of the simulation. The results are 0 consistent with the conjecture that a star will retain its bar shape indefinitely on a dynamical time 0 scale, as long as its rotation rate exceeds the threshold for secular bar instability. The results are 0 described in terms of a low density neutron star, but can be scaled to represent, for example, a 2 burned–out stellar core that is prevented from complete collapse by centrifugal forces. Estimates for l