Pulsar glitches triggered by quakes when stress reaches a threshold

Abstract

The starquake model of pulsar glitches is revisited in light of accumulated observational data. A statistical comparison between the time-predictable and the magnitude-predictable models, borrowed from seismology and grounded in the classical spring-slider framework, is performed against a sample of 245 glitch events from 9 pulsars. It is found that the data supports the time-predictable model, i.e., a quake resulting in a glitch could be triggered when the developed stress reaches a critical threshold, τ_c, while the remaining elastic energy (correspondingly the residual stress, τ_r) after quakes is not fixed. The critical stress could be the order of τ_c≃ (10³⁴−10³⁵) dyn cm⁻² if the residual stress after a quake with maximum stress drops could be considered negligible (i.e., τ_r≃ 0), to explain the glitch amplitudes and the intervals. This τ_c-value is the order of the shear modulus of strangeon stars, but would be several orders higher than that of conventional neutron stars.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{zhou2026pulsar,
  title = {{Pulsar glitches triggered by quakes when stress reaches a threshold}},
  author = {Zixuan Zhou and Ruipeng Lu and Weiyang Wang and Han Yue and Renxin Xu},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.38837},
  eprint = {2609.38837},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.38837},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Pulsar glitches triggered by quakes when stress reaches a threshold
AU  - Zixuan Zhou
AU  - Ruipeng Lu
AU  - Weiyang Wang
AU  - Han Yue
AU  - Renxin Xu
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/30
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.38837
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.38837
AB  - The starquake model of pulsar glitches is revisited in light of accumulated observational data. A statistical comparison between the time-predictable and the magnitude-predictable models, borrowed from seismology and grounded in the classical spring-slider framework, is performed against a sample of 245 glitch events from 9 pulsars. It is found that the data supports the time-predictable model, i.e., a quake resulting in a glitch could be triggered when the developed stress reaches a critical threshold, τ_c, while the remaining elastic energy (correspondingly the residual stress, τ_r) after quakes is not fixed. The critical stress could be the order of τ_c≃ (10^34−10^35) dyn cm^−2 if the residual stress after a quake with maximum stress drops could be considered negligible (i.e., τ_r≃ 0), to explain the glitch amplitudes and the intervals. This τ_c-value is the order of the shear modulus of strangeon stars, but would be several orders higher than that of conventional neutron stars.
ER  -

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