Glitching pulsars as sources of transient gravitational waves

Yim, Garvin

Glitching pulsars are expected to be important sources of gravitational waves. In this talk， we outline six different models that propose the emission of transient continuous gravitational waves， lasting days to months， coincident with glitches. The maximal gravitational wave energy is calculated for each model， which is then used to determine whether associated gravitational waves could be detectable with O4 detectors. We provide an analytical approximation to calculate the gravitational wave signal-to-noise ratio which includes information about the source’s sky position， improving on previous estimates that assume isotropic or sky and orientation averaged sensitivities. Applying the calculation to the entire glitching population， we find that certain models predict detectable signals in O4， whereas others do not. We also rank glitching pulsars in order of how significant a signal would be， based on archival data， and we find that for all models， the Vela pulsar (J0835−4510) would provide the strongest signal. Moreover， J0537−6910 is not expected to yield a detectable signal in O4， but will start becoming relevant for next generation detectors. Our analysis also extends to the entire pulsar population， regardless of whether they have glitched or not， and we provide a list of pulsars that would present a significant signal， if they were to glitch. Finally， we apply our analysis to the latest April 2024 Vela glitch and we find that a signal should be detectable under certain models. The non-detection of a supposedly detectable signal would provide an efficiency factor that quantifies how much a model can contribute to gravitational wave emission， eventually leading to independent constraints on physical parameters.