Abstract
THE rotational dynamics of freely spinning pulsars are discussed below; the effect of pulsar nonrigidity and some possible consequences of viscosity are included. Expressions given for the period of the Eulerian free oscillation (or free precession) of pulsars are of particular interest. This oscillation is a permitted solution of the free rotational dynamics because, as a result of centrifugal effects, pulsars are somewhat oblate, and any nonspherically symmetric body, which is not a perfect fluid and is spinning freely in space, will wobble about the constant direction of its angular momentum vector. It will be mentioned that this phenomenon may account for some of the amplitude and time variations seen in pulsar signals and, if observed, could give the first fairly accurate measurement of a pulsar's size.
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BURNS, J. The Free Dynamics of Pulsars. Nature 228, 986–988 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/228986a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/228986a0
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