A Tight Universal Relation between the Shape Eccentricity and the Moment of Inertia for Rotating Neutron Stars

Abstract

Universal relations that are insensitive to the equation of state are useful in reducing the parameter space when measuring global quantities of neutron stars (NSs). In this paper, we reveal a new universal relation that connects the eccentricity to the radius and moment of inertia of rotating NSs. We demonstrate that the universality of this relation holds for both conventional NSs and bare quark stars (QSs) in the slow-rotation approximation, albeit with different relations. The maximum relative deviation is approximately 1% for conventional NSs and 0.1% for QSs. Additionally, we show that the universality still exists for fast-rotating NSs if we use the dimensionless spin to characterize their rotation. The new universal relation will be a valuable tool to reduce the number of parameters used to describe the shape and multipoles of rotating NSs, and it may also be used to infer the eccentricity or moment of inertia of NSs in future X-ray observations.

Keywords

• Neutron stars