Neutron star pulsations and instabilities

Gravitational radiation (GR) drives an instability in certain modes of rotating stars. This instability is strong enough in the case of the r-modes to cause their amplitudes to grow on a timescale of tens of seconds in rapidly rotating neutron stars. GR emitted by these modes removes angular momentum from the star at a rate which would spin it down to a relatively small angular velocity within about one year, if the dimensionless amplitude of the mode grows to order unity. A pedagogical level discussion is given here on the mechanism of GR instability in rotating stars, on the relevant properties of the r-modes, and on our present understanding of the dissipation mechanisms that tend to suppress this instability in neutron stars. The astrophysical implications of this GR driven instability are discussed for young neutron stars, and for older systems such as low mass x-ray binaries. Recent work on the non-linear evolution of the r-modes is also presented. (author)