{"record":{"author":{"account_ref":null,"orcid":null},"builds_on":[],"content_schema":"pubphys.content.revision/1","content_sha256":"4e0d0e066ba9c78b4974c50031d0cf2882b3ab5b4b6c5c3801d468e91b7332a1","created":"2026-10-03T07:17:55Z","files":[],"origin":{"assisted_by":[],"kind":"seed"},"parents":["5475cf5dc5b1a72283d26dc95dc6e00d7ea4e00096a7c6492e409a1816eeb011"],"salt":"69e2c5de95e5368853e310b91e3dfc7c327aaf9815bc07a98a089137de161205","schema":"pubphys.record/2","site":"pubphys.com","target":null,"type":"revision"},"content":{"answer_type":"mechanism","assisted_by":[],"external_id":"astro.neutron-star-interiors.glitch-trigger","kind":"phenomenon","literature_status":"open","n":"1","parents":[],"plain":"Pulsars, spinning neutron stars, sometimes suddenly spin faster in a glitch. The superfluid inside is thought to dump its spin into the crust, but what starts the event, a cascade of released vortices (tiny whirlpools) or a crack in the crust, is unknown.","posed_since":"1969","precise":"Glitches have fractional spin-up $\\Delta \\nu/\\nu \\sim 1e-11 \\text{ to } 1e-5$, with power-law size distributions in most pulsars and quasi-periodic large events ($\\Delta \\nu/\\nu \\sim 1e-6$, about every 3 yr) in Vela. Determine the trigger: collective unpinning avalanches of superfluid vortices, crust quakes, or hydrodynamic instabilities of the superfluid-crust counterflow, and derive the observed size and waiting-time statistics and the sub-minute spin-up timescale.","problem_ref":null,"references":"","settled_by":"A model of vortex-crust dynamics that reproduces glitch size and waiting-time distributions and the resolved spin-up of a Vela glitch.","status_note":"A single-pulse recording of the 2016 Vela glitch showed pulse-shape changes during the event (Palfreyman et al., Nature, 2018), constraining but not deciding the trigger.","title":"What triggers pulsar glitches?","topic_ref":"afd1feb0d7ec84994296c83f9c2ecba96e22fc9ddf5d5fa7c0562e1f6f4eb1d4"},"attested":{"attestation":{"batch":null,"client_id":null,"id_token_sha256":null,"kind":"platform"},"record_hash":"3c1e89ff71038316840faa027f3b65ecc2b47aefbcff026f0f3bfde571aec85d","schema":"pubphys.attested/1"},"envelope":{"attested_hash":"1d87f4008fe0f258063d54b7c2ead26e170c2a6059441cc8e7c06f404dc73b5e","platform_signature":{"key_id":"c6afc19b31429869751f06879c75cd64ea92654423d15b44be775bf1310a60da","sig":"G2lCT1wEyUtdhMmkNS0r8MCzZzfpPjHP6a5ngyGd2an-Us0LwEymK0SZXExsV94yoHFnGg5hMYJkl1ytIBt9CQ"},"schema":"pubphys.envelope/1"},"record_hash":"3c1e89ff71038316840faa027f3b65ecc2b47aefbcff026f0f3bfde571aec85d","leaf_index":573}