Stability of hall equilibria in neutron star crusts

Abstract

© 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.. In the solid crusts of neutron stars, the advection of the magnetic field by the current-carrying electrons, an effect known as Hall drift, should play a very important role as the ions remain essentially fixed (as long as the solid does not break). Although Hall drift preserves the magnetic field energy, it has been argued that it may drive a turbulent cascade to scales at which ohmic dissipation becomes effective, allowing a much faster decay in objects with very strong fields. On the other hand, it has been found that there are "Hall equilibria," i.e., field configurations that are unaffected by Hall drift. Here we address the crucial question of the stability of these equilibria through axially symmetric (two-dimensional (2D)) numerical simulations of Hall drift and ohmic diffusion, with the simplifying assumption of uniform electron density and conductivity. We demonstrate the 2D stability of a purely poloidal equili