Gravitational waves from magnetically-induced thermal neutron star mountains

Understand

Many low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) systems are observed to contain rapidly spinning neutron stars.

• The spin frequencies of these systems may be limited by the emission of gravitational waves.
• This can happen if their mass distribution is sufficiently non-axisymmetric.
• It has been suggested that such `mountains' may be created via temperature non-axisymmetries, but estimates of the likely level of temperature asymmetry have been lacking.