Mass Shedding, Observed Spin and the Rotation Rate Implied by the Density Bound in Neutron Stars
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The fastest neutron stars rotate hundreds of times per second, close enough to their mass-shedding limit that spin is a real structural constraint. This paper sets three rotation scales side by side: the observed spins of millisecond pulsars up to 716 Hz, the Kepler frequency of 1.650e+03 Hz for a canonical 1.4-solar-mass, 12 km star, and the rotation rate of 2.62e+23 Hz that a star compressed to the neutron-branch density bound could sustain before shedding, on a radius floor of 4.089e-10 m. The record pulsar turns at 4.338e-01 of its shedding rate, while the fractional correction the density bound makes to the shedding rate itself, at a central density of 2.8e18 kg per cubic metre, is 2.88e-40. Rotation constrains neutron star structure through ordinary gravity alone; the bound adds nothing measurable. Simulated, not measured.
Author: Aldred, William Alexander
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225820172
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