Rotational Viscosity in Linear Irreversible Thermodynamics and its Application to Neutron Stars

A generalized analysis of the local entropy production of a simple fluid is used to show that, if intrinsic angular momentum is taken into account, rotational viscosity must arise in the linear non-equilibrium regime. As a consequence, the stress tensor of dense rotating matter, such as the one present in neutron stars, posseses a significant nonvanishing antisymmetrical part. A simple argument suggests that, due to the extreme magnetic fields present in neutron stars, the relaxation time associated to rotational viscosity is large (~10 21 s). The formalism leads to generalized Navier-Stokes equations useful in neutron star physics which involve vorticity in the linear regime.