Neutron Star Crustal Plate Tectonics. III. Cracking, Glitches, and Gamma-Ray Bursts

When the growing vortex pinning stresses in a cool, spinning-down superfluid neutron star strain the crust beyond its elastic yield strength, large-scale crust cracking events may occur. These would result in pulsar timing glitches with magnitude and recurrence rates near those observed. In old or dead radio pulsars these sudden releases of stored elastic energy should give bursts of X-ray and gamma-rays whose number, energy, and rise time suggest those of the so far unidentified gamma-ray burst sources