Triggering mechanism of pulsar glitches remains uncertain

Determine the actual physical mechanism that triggers pulsar glitches (sudden spin-ups) in neutron stars, evaluating candidate processes—including potential roles of superfluidity and quantum turbulence—to establish a definitive causal explanation.

Background

The paper discusses how vortex-ring nucleation and related superfluid dynamics may influence the macroscopic behavior of neutron stars. It connects these microscopic processes to the longstanding astrophysical puzzle of pulsar glitches—sudden spin-up events observed in some pulsars.

Although superfluidity is expected to be central to glitch physics, the authors explicitly note that the actual mechanism remains uncertain and suggest quantum turbulence as a possible contributor, underscoring an open problem linking microscopic superfluid dynamics to macroscopic astrophysical observations.

References

Although superfluidity is expected to play a major role, the actual triggering mechanism remains uncertain. Quantum turbulence could be one of them [117].

— Time-dependent nuclear energy-density functional theory toolkit for neutron star crust: Dynamics of a nucleus in a neutron superfluid  (2403.17499 - Pȩcak et al., 2024) in Section V (Dissipation), page 041054-11

We therefore leave a detailed analysis of the combined \alpha-\beta system for magnetar glitches to future work.

— Gravitational Wave Parity-Violating Strain from Pulsar Glitches in Chern-Simons Modified Gravity  (2608.24002 - Rout et al., 25 Aug 2026) in Section 6.5, “Limitations and Caveats”; also Section 2.3, “Scalar Field Equation”

A key question is what mechanism triggers the collective motion of many vortices, causing these vortices to go from the lower, cold branch of Fig.~\ref{hysteresis}, to the upper, hot branch.

— Superfluidity and Vortex Dynamics in Neutron Stars  (2609.01022 - Link et al., 1 Sep 2026) in Section “The size of spin glitches”