Magnetic helicity in rotating neutron stars

Abstract

We study the magnetic helicity evolution in neutron stars (NSs). First, we analyze how the surface terms affect the conservation law for the sum of the chiral imbalance of the charged particle densities and the density of the magnetic helicity. Our results are applied to a system with a finite volume, which can be a magnetized NS. We show that the contribution of these surface terms can potentially lead to the reconnection of magnetic field lines followed by X-ray or gamma bursts observed in magnetars. Comparing the new quantum surface term with the classical contribution known in the standard magnetic hydrodynamics, we obtain that its contribution dominates over the classical term only for NS with a rigid rotation. Second, we study the dynamics of chiral electrons which interact electroweakly with a background fermions having the velocity, arbitrarily depending on spatial coordinates, and the nonuniform density. We derive the the kinetic equations and the effective action for right and left particles. The correction to the Adler anomaly and to the anomalous electric current are obtained in the case of a rotating matter. Then, the obtained results are applied for the study of the magnetic helicity flow inside a magnetized rotating NS. We compute the characteristic time of the helicity change and demonstrate that it coincides with the the magnetic cycle period of certain pulsars.