Toroidal Magnetic Fields in Type II Superconducting Neutron Stars

Understand

We determine constraints on the form of axisymmetric toroidal magnetic fields dictated by hydrostatic balance in a type II superconducting neutron star with a barotropic equation of state.

• Using Lagrangian perturbation theory, we find the quadrupolar distortions due to such fields for various models of neutron stars with type II superconducting and normal regions.
• We find that the star becomes prolate and can be sufficiently distorted to display precession with a period of the order of years.
• We also study the stability of such fields using an energy principle, which allows us to extend the stability criteria established by R.