# Viscous Boundary Layer Damping of R-Modes in Neutron Stars

## 1. Introduction

The recently discovered r-mode instability (Andersson 1998; Friedman & Morsink 1998) might play a significant role in setting the spin frequencies ($`\nu _s`$) of rapidly rotating neutron stars (Lindblom et al. 1998; Owen et al. 1998; Andersson et al. 1999a; Bildsten 1998; Andersson et al. 1999b). The unstable regime for the r-modes in the neutron star (NS) core depends on the competition between the gravitational radiation excitation and viscous dissipation. Lindblom et al. (1998) and Andersson et al. (1999a) computed the dissipation due to shear and bulk viscosities in normal fluids (not superfluids) and found that gravitational excitation exceeds viscous damping in all but the most slowly rotating stars. Lindblom & Mendell (1999) showed that superfluid mutual friction is also not competitive with gravitational radiation unless the superfluid entrainment parameter assumes a very special value. Hence, on theoretical grounds, r-modes are expected to be unstable over much of the parameter space occupied by newborn NSs, NSs in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), and millisecond radio pulsars (MSPs) during spin-up.

However, observations pose challenges to this theoretical picture. The existence of two $`1.6`$ ms radio pulsars means that rapidly rotating NSs are formed in spite of the r-mode instability (Andersson et al. 1999b). While it is not clear that their current core temperatures place these MSPs inside the r-mode instability region, current theory says that they were certainly unstable during spin-up. For accreting NSs in LMXBs, Bildsten (1998) and Andersson et al. (1999b) conjectured that the gravitational radiation from an r-mode with a small constant amplitude could balance the accretion torque. This would possibly explain the preponderance of $`300`$ Hz spins among LMXBs (van der Klis 1999), which would otherwise have been spun up to $`>1000\mathrm{Hz}`$ during their $`10^9`$ yr lifetime (van Paradijs & White 1995). However, for normal fluid cores, Levin (1999) showed that the temperature dependence of the shear viscosity makes this spin equilibrium thermally unstable, leading to a limit cycle behavior of rapid spin-downs after prolonged periods of spin-up. For superfluid cores, Brown & Ushomirsky (1999) showed that such constant-amplitude spin-up is inconsistent with the quiescent luminosities of several known LMXBs.

All but the hottest NSs have solid crusts that occupy the outer $``$ km of the star. In this paper, we calculate a previously overlooked dissipation: the viscous boundary layer between the oscillating fluid core and static crust. The shear viscosity of NS matter is relatively small and does not affect the r-mode structure in the stellar interior. However, the transverse fluid motions of the r-modes are very large at the crust-core boundary and must, of course, go to zero relative velocity at the crust. The dissipation in the resulting viscous boundary layer (hereafter referred to as the VBL) substantially shortens (by typically $`10^5`$) the r-mode damping times. Previous work (Lindblom et al. 1998, 1999; Andersson et al. 1999a) included damping from the shear viscosity acting only on the gradient in the transverse velocity of the mode in the interior of the star (on the length scale of the stellar radius, $`R`$). The shear in the VBL acts on a much shorter length scale, and is hence stronger.

This new source of dissipation raises the minimum frequency for the r-mode instability in NSs with a crust to $`500`$ Hz for $`T10^{10}`$ K, and even higher frequencies for lower temperatures. It thus alleviates the conflict between the accretion-driven spin-up scenario for MSPs and the r-mode instability and significantly alters the spin-down scenario proposed by Owen et al. (1998) for newborn NSs.

## 2. The Viscous Boundary Layer

The transverse fluid motions of an r-mode cause a time-dependent “rubbing” of the core fluid against the otherwise co-rotating crust spinning at $`\mathrm{\Omega }=2\pi \nu _s`$. In previous works, the boundary condition applied at this location allowed the fluid to have large-amplitude transverse motion. Neglecting viscosity is an excellent assumption far away from the crust-core interface. However, there can be no relative motion at the boundary for a viscous fluid, leading to a VBL where the transverse velocity drops from a large value to zero (the “no-slip” condition). The VBL is mediated by the kinematic viscosity, $`\nu `$, in the fluid just beneath the base of the crust. The density there has most recently been estimated as $`\rho _\mathrm{b}1.5\times 10^{14}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (Pethick et al. 1995). We use the values for $`\nu `$ as found by Flowers & Itoh (1979) and fit by Cutler & Lindblom (1987),

$$\nu =1.8\times 10^4\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\frac{f}{T_8^2}.$$
(1)   
In this fit, three different cases are handled with the parameter $`f`$. When both neutrons and protons are normal, the predominant scatterers are neutrons, and $`f=(\rho /\rho _\mathrm{b})^{5/4}`$. If neutrons are superfluid and protons normal, the viscosity is mediated by electron-proton scattering, and $`f=1/15`$. Finally, when both protons and neutrons are superfluid, electron-electron scattering yields $`f=5(\rho /\rho _\mathrm{b})`$.

We begin by assuming that the crust is infinitely rigid, and hence the waves do not penetrate into the crust. In an oscillating flow, the thickness of the VBL, $`\delta `$, is found by setting the oscillation frequency of the r-mode in the rotating frame, $`\omega =2m\mathrm{\Omega }/l(l+1)=2\mathrm{\Omega }/3`$ ($`l=m=2`$), to the inverse of the time it takes vorticity to diffuse across its width, i.e. $`\delta ^2/\nu \omega ^1`$. In the plane-parallel case, Landau & Lifshitz (1959) show that the correction to the velocity in the VBL of an incompressible oscillatory flow falls off exponentially with a length

$$\delta =\left(\frac{2\nu }{\omega }\right)^{1/2}3\mathrm{cm}\frac{f^{1/2}}{T_8}\left(\frac{1\mathrm{kHz}}{\nu _s}\right)^{1/2},$$
(2)   
much smaller than $`R`$. This estimate neglects the Coriolis force. When the VBL is determined by the balance between the Coriolis force, $`2\mathrm{\Omega }v`$, and viscosity, $`\nu v/\delta ^2`$ (the Ekman problem), then the thickness is $`\delta (\nu /\mathrm{\Omega })^{1/2}`$, roughly the same as eq. (2). Hence, while the Coriolis force will change the angular dependence of the velocity in the VBL, it is unlikely to change its thickness.

The viscous dissipation can be handled quite simply for this thin VBL. Since all of the kinetic energy there is damped in one cycle, the $`Q`$ of the oscillation is roughly just the ratio of the total volume to that in the VBL, or $`QR/3\delta 10^5T_8(\nu _s/1\mathrm{kHz})^{1/2}/f^{1/2}`$. The damping time is then a few hundred seconds, thus competitive with the growth time from gravitational wave emission, $`\tau _{\mathrm{gw}}=146\mathrm{s}M_{1.4}^3R_6^9(\nu _s/1\mathrm{kHz})^6`$, where $`M_{1.4}=M/1.4M_{}`$ and $`R_6=R/10\mathrm{km}`$, of the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode (Owen et al. 1998; Lindblom et al. 1998).

To calculate the damping more accurately, we use the dissipation per unit area from Landau & Lifshitz (1959) and integrate over the surface area at the crust-core boundary

$$\frac{dE}{dt}=\frac{\rho v^2}{2}\left(\frac{\omega \nu }{2}\right)^{1/2}R^2\mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta d\varphi .$$
(3)   
The fluid velocity is given by $`\stackrel{}{v}=(\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }R)\stackrel{}{Y}_{lm}^Be^{i\omega t}`$, and $`E=1.64\times 10^2M(\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }R)^2/2`$ is the mode energy (Owen et al. 1998). Integrating and using the mode frequency in the rotating frame, we find the damping time due to rubbing

$$\tau _{\mathrm{rub}}=\frac{2E}{dE/dt}100\mathrm{s}\frac{M_{1.4}T_8}{R_6^2f^{1/2}}\left(\frac{\rho _\mathrm{b}}{\rho }\right)\left(\frac{1\mathrm{kHz}}{\nu _s}\right)^{1/2},$$

where $`\rho `$ is the density at the crust-core boundary.

So far, we have assumed that the large-scale relative motion between the oscillating core and the crust is simply set by the toroidal motion of the r-mode. This is fine in the inviscid limit ($`\nu =0`$). The transverse displacement $`\xi _{}`$ at the crust-core boundary is then discontinuous, and the r-modes do not couple to the crust’s torsional modes, which have $`\stackrel{}{\xi }=\xi _{}\stackrel{}{Y}_{lm}^B`$. For $`\nu =0`$, r-modes can only couple to the crust via their $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Omega }^2)`$ radial motion. However, the VBL exerts a time-dependent shear stress, $`\sigma _r=(\omega \nu )^{1/2}\rho v`$ (Landau & Lifshitz 1959), that shakes the crust and can potentially couple the crust to the core. If this coupling can drive the amplitude of the crustal motion $`\xi _{}`$ to be comparable to the transverse motions in the r-modes ($`\xi _{}=3\alpha R/2`$ for $`l=m=2`$), then our picture of the core rubbing against a static crust would need to be reconsidered. The energy in an r-mode oscillation is $`10^{51}\alpha ^2(\nu _s/1\mathrm{kHz})^2\mathrm{ergs}`$, while the typical energy in torsional oscillations of the crust is roughly $`10^{48}\alpha ^2\mathrm{ergs}`$ (McDermott et al. 1988). Hence, if the r-mode could couple efficiently to the crust, it would have adequate energy to drive crustal pulsations of comparable amplitude and potentially break the crust. We now estimate the magnitude of this coupling and show that, under most circumstances, it should be quite small.

Let us look at a toy problem of a simple harmonic oscillator (i.e., the crust) with a mode frequency $`\omega _0`$ and weak damping $`\gamma \omega _0`$ driven by a harmonic force per unit mass $`f_0e^{i\omega t}`$. Away from resonances with crustal pulsation modes, the response of the crust is then just $`\xi _{}f_0/(\omega _0^2\omega ^2)`$. Ignoring Coriolis force, the fundamental $`l=2`$ torsional mode has a frequency $`40\mathrm{Hz}`$, while the overtones have frequencies $`500n\mathrm{Hz}`$, where $`n1`$ is the radial order of the overtone (McDermott et al. 1988). Damping times of these oscillations are on the order of days to decades (McDermott et al. 1988), so the resonances are narrow. The spacing between the crustal modes, $`500`$ Hz, is comparable to the r-mode frequency, so on average, $`\omega _0^2\omega ^2\omega ^2`$. Mass per unit area in the crust is $`M_{\mathrm{crust}}/4\pi R^2=\rho h`$, where $`h1`$ km is the scale height at the base of the crust. Therefore, $`f_0=\sigma _r/\rho h`$ and, in the likely situation that the r-mode frequency is not in resonance with a normal mode frequency of the crust, we find $`\xi _{}/R\alpha (\delta /h)10^4\alpha /T_8`$.

This simple model (and a preliminary calculation) shows that the induced toroidal displacements in the crust are much smaller than the r-mode displacements. In other words, even though the r-mode has plenty of energy to drive crustal pulsations, it cannot effectively shake the crust. Hence, neglecting the coupling should not invalidate our estimate of the damping time $`\tau _{\mathrm{rub}}`$.

## 3. The R-mode Instability

We now find the region in $`(\nu _s,T)`$ space where a NS is unstable to the r-mode instability by balancing the viscous damping with the excitation due to gravitational radiation. When the crust is present, the r-mode is unstable for $`\tau _{\mathrm{rub}}<|\tau _{\mathrm{gw}}|`$, or

$$\nu _s1070\mathrm{Hz}\frac{M_{1.4}^{4/11}}{R_6^{14/11}}\frac{f^{1/11}}{T_8^{2/11}}\left(\frac{\rho }{\rho _\mathrm{b}}\right)^{2/11}.$$
(4)   
However, other viscous mechanisms in the core also contribute to the damping. In Figure 2 we show the critical spin frequency where $`1/\tau _{\mathrm{gw}}1/\tau _{\mathrm{rub}}1/\tau _{\mathrm{visc}}=0`$, where we use previously published calculations of shear (Lindblom et al. 1998) and bulk (Lindblom et al. 1999) viscous r-mode damping for the interior viscous damping time $`\tau _{\mathrm{visc}}`$. The solid line corresponds to the case where all nucleons are normal ($`f=1`$), while the shading around it represents the range in frequencies when either neutrons or all nucleons are superfluid. For comparison, the dashed line shows the instability curve that neglects the effect of the viscous boundary layer. Our curves presume that the crust is present for all temperatures less than $`2\times 10^{10}`$ K. For temperatures higher than that, the bulk viscosity is the dominant damping mechanism.

The shaded box in Figure 2 indicates the region of the $`(\nu _s,T)`$ space where the observed LMXBs ($`250\mathrm{Hz}\nu _s600\mathrm{Hz}`$, $`T(18)\times 10^8`$ K; Brown & Bildsten 1998) reside. The arrows on the left-hand side of the plot show frequencies and the upper limits on the core temperatures for the two fastest MSPs. Clearly, the strength of the VBL dissipation means that r-modes are not excited in the accreting and colder ($`T10^9`$ K) NSs. This result removes the discrepancy between the existence of $`1.6`$ ms ($`625`$ Hz) millisecond pulsars and the r-mode instability (Andersson et al. 1999b) and alleviates the disagreement between the observed and predicted quiescent luminosities of NS transients (Brown & Ushomirsky 1999).

We now re-examine the thermogravitational runaway scenario for LMXBs (Levin 1999) . The two closed loops in Figure 2 show the evolution of the spin and temperature of a NS accreting at $`10^8M_{}`$ yr<sup>-1</sup> (i.e, same as in Levin 1999), but including the VBL damping. The evolution is qualitatively the same. First, the star spins up until it reaches the instability line. The r-mode amplitude then grows until saturation (at amplitude $`\alpha _s`$), heating the star, and then spins it down due to gravitational wave emission. The r-mode eventually stabilizes and the star cools down. For the chosen $`\alpha _s`$, the thermal runaway spins the star down to $`200400`$ Hz. The final frequency is not sensitive to the initial temperature of the star, but only to the assumed $`\alpha _s`$. The duration of the active r-mode phase is $`<\mathrm{yr}`$, while the duration of the cool-down at constant spin is $`10^5`$ yrs. The spinup from $`400`$ to $`1100`$ Hz takes roughly $`5\times 10^6`$ yrs.

Therefore, in agreement with Levin (1999), we do not expect that any of the currently observed LMXBs are in the active r-mode phase. Moreover, this evolution cannot explain the clustering of LMXB spins around $`300`$ Hz (van der Klis 1999), since the duration of the cool-down at constant spin phase (horizontal leg in Figure 2) is much shorter than that of the spin-up phase (the vertical leg). Other mechanisms, such as mass quadrupole radiation from the crust (Bildsten 1998) can likely explain such clustering.

What about newborn NSs? NSs born in supernovae are thought to rotate near breakup, and have initial temperatures $`T_i10^{11}`$ K. They quickly cool, roughly according to $`T_9=(t/\tau _c)^{1/6}`$ for $`TT_i`$, where $`\tau _c1`$ yr is the Urca cooling time at $`10^9`$ K (Shapiro & Teukolsky 1983). During the initial cooling stage, the r-mode instability line is as calculated previously (dashed line in Figure 2), and the spin-down evolution proceeds according to the scenario described by Owen et al. (1998). However, a solid crust forms when the NS has cooled to $`T_\mathrm{m}10^{10}`$ K (the exact temperature depends on the composition), after which we expect the evolution to be significantly altered.

The dotted line in Figure 2 shows the evolution of $`\nu _s`$ and $`T`$ of a newborn NS, computed as in Owen et al. (1998), with initial spin $`\nu _{s,i}=1320`$ Hz, but including the VBL and the heating from it. The star cools from $`T_i=10^{11}`$ K and enters the instability region. The r-mode then grows, saturates at $`\alpha _s=1`$, and spins the star down. We find that the final spin frequency of the star is $`\nu _f=415`$ Hz including the VBL, rather than $`120`$ Hz (Owen et al. 1998). The spindown is also of shorter duration, lasting only $`10^4`$ s, rather than the $`1`$ yr of the original calculations of Owen et al. (1998). For shorter Urca cooling time $`\tau _c`$, the final frequency is somewhat higher. The effect of the heating due to the VBL on the cooling time is negligible. In our simulation, the r-mode amplitude grows only by a factor of 3 from its initial value by the time the star cools to $`T_\mathrm{m}`$, so we do not expect the presence of the r-mode to affect crust formation. In general, the rapid spindown phase begins when the Urca cooling time at the current temperature, $`T/(dT/dt)T^6`$, exceeds the gravitational wave spindown time, $`\mathrm{\Omega }/(d\mathrm{\Omega }/dt)\alpha _s^2`$. Therefore, unless $`T_\mathrm{m}`$ is much less than $`10^{10}`$ K, the crust will form while the r-mode amplitude is still rather small.

The strain amplitude is a very shallow function of $`\nu _s`$ during the spin-down stage, $`h_c\nu _s^{1/2}`$ (Owen et al. 1998). However, most signal-to-noise ($`S/N`$) in a gravitational wave detector is accumulated at low $`\nu _s`$, where the source spends most of its time. Hence, the total $`S/N`$ depends sensitively on the low-frequency cutoff of the spin-down evolution. Using the results of Owen et al. (1998), we find that raising the cutoff frequency to $`415`$ Hz from $`120`$ Hz reduces the $`S/N`$ from $`8`$ to $`2.5`$ for “enhanced” LIGO and a NS at a distance of $`20`$ Mpc, where the event rate is expected to be a few per year.

## 4. Conclusions and Future Work

Our initial work on the viscous boundary layer between the oscillating fluid in the core and the co-rotating crust shows that the dissipation there is very large, making it the predominant r-mode damping mechanism when the crust is present. The smallest spin frequency which allows the r-mode to operate is about 500 Hz, nearly a factor of five higher than previous estimates. This substantially reduces the parameter space for the instability to operate, especially for older, colder NSs, such as those accreting in binaries and millisecond pulsars. It resolves the discrepancy between the theoretical understanding of the r-mode instability and the observations of millisecond pulsars and LMXBs.

In our estimates we presumed that the boundary layer is laminar. Of course, turbulence in the VBL would increase the viscosity there and move the instability to higher rotation frequencies. We also showed that the r-modes induce some transverse motions in the crust, though these motions appear to be negligibly small compared to the r-mode amplitude. The Coriolis force is likely to change the details of the eigenfunctions in the boundary layer, but it is unlikely to change its gross structure. Finally, based on the large conductivity contrast between the core and the crust, we have presumed that the VBL heating evenly spreads throughout the isothermal core. This may be an oversimplification, and a more detailed time-dependent calculation of the heat transport will yield the radial temperature profile. This is especially important for the accreting systems, where the crust melting temperatures are lower because of the smaller mean nuclear charges (Haensel & Zdunik 1990).

Can a weak magnetic field substantially change our arguments? The Ohmic diffusion time across the VBL is many years, much longer than the oscillation period. Hence, any magnetic field protruding into the fluid from the crust will be pulled and sheared in a nearly ideal MHD response. The field produced by the shear is $`\delta B/B\alpha R/\delta `$, and hence the magnetic field does not compete with viscous shear when $`B(\rho \nu \mathrm{\Omega })^{1/2}10^{11}\mathrm{G}(\nu _s/1\mathrm{kHz})^{1/2}/T_8`$. The surface dipole field strengths in LMXBs and MSPs are lower than this value. If the same can be said about the $`B`$ field at the base of the crust, then the viscous boundary layer we have discussed should apply. Of course, for younger and potentially much more magnetic neutron stars, the story will be modified, as the restoring force from the stretched field lines needs to be self-consistently included.

We thank Andrew Cumming, Yuri Levin, and Lee Lindblom for helpful conversations. L.B. is a Cottrell Scholar of the Research Corporation and G.U. is a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellow. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grants AST97-31632 and PHY 94-07194.