PULSARS ARE NOT THE ONLY THINGS THAT GLITCH
The photo above shows the remains of a supernova resulting from the explosion of a star. The energy of these explosions, on the order 10⁵¹ ergs, is unimaginably large compared to anything we know from experience. When the stellar envelopes are blown off, what often remains is an ultracompact object that can be in the form of a pulsar.
Pulsars pack the mass of more than the Sun’s mass into an object with a radius on the order of 10 kilometers. Their unimaginably large densities are comparable to the densities of subatomic nuclei. In fact, more than a few astrophysicists have mentioned that pulsars and neutron stars are like stellar scale analogues of subatomic nuclei.
One remarkable thing that pulsars do is glitch, and here is an illustration of that phenomenon.
In evaluating the analogy between pulsars and subatomic nuclei, one might ask if subatomic nuclei do the same glitching phenomenon. Remarkably: they do!
Here is a comparison between observed glitches in an Er-158 nucleus and the Vela pulsar.
It should be noted that the fractional size of the above glitches (delta P/P) were quite different. The glitch in Er-158 is on the order of 0.1 while that of the Vela pulsar is on the order of 10^–6. This disparity led me in 1989 to make the following published prediction. (RLO, International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 28, 1503–1532, 1989)
“Pulsars have been identified as analogues to atomic scale nuclei in excited states and it has been shown that the magnetic dipole moments of neutron stars and atomic nuclei are related by the SSCM scaling relations (Oldershaw, Astrophysical Journal, 322, 34–36, 1987). Both pulsars and exited atomic nuclei exhibit a remarkable phenomenon called “glitches” wherein the steadily decreasing rotation rate of the object suddenly jumps to a higher value and then returns to steady decrease from the higher spin rate (Stephens, 1985). A quantitative measure of a “glitch” is given by DP/P, where P is the rotation period and DP is the magnitude of the sudden jump. In excited atomic nuclei DP/P can be as high as 0.1, whereas the largest “glitch” observed (Lynn, 1987) for a pulsar was on the order of 10^–6. Therefore, the Discrete Scale Relativity unambiguously predicts that pulsars can exhibit “glitches” with DP/P values up to 0.1, and no other theory makes such a prediction. A caveat here is that very large “glitches” have only been observed in very massive atomic nuclei, and stellar scale nucleus analogues of correspondingly high mass should be extremely rare. Moreover, even among a population of very high mass pulsars the probability of a “glitch” event with DP/P = 0.1 may be very small. Nevertheless, one can expect that as more pulsars are discovered and monitored the observed DP/P maximum will keep increasing, and perhaps a very large “glitch” will be observed in spite of the odds.”
I am now happy to report that a new record-holder for pulsar glitches has just been published [ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.00727.pdf ] and the deltaP/P is on the order of 10^-3. That is still a long way from 0.1, but it is also a long way from 10^-6, and I like the trend, which is consistent with the above prediction.
If you find this analogy interesting, and you would like to see it expanded into a new and highly unified cosmological paradigm that is well-motivated empirically, I suggest that you start with the link below.