  The amplitude of the gravitational radiation from an accreting neutron star
undergoing polar magnetic burial is calculated. During accretion, the magnetic
field of a neutron star is compressed into a narrow belt at the magnetic
equator by material spreading equatorward from the polar cap. In turn, the
compressed field confines the accreted material in a polar mountain which is
misaligned with the rotation axis in general, producing gravitational waves.
The equilibrium hydromagnetic structure of the polar mountain, and its
associated mass quadrupole moment, are computed as functions of the accreted
mass, M_a, by solving a Grad-Shafranov boundary value problem. The orientation-
and polarization-averaged gravitational wave strain, h_c ~ 6e-24 for a 0.6 kHz
source at 1 kpc with M_a > 10^-5 M_Sun, exceeds previous estimates that failed
to treat equatorward spreading and flux freezing self-consistently. It is
concluded that an accreting millisecond pulsar emits a persistent, sinusoidal
gravitational wave signal at levels detectable, in principle, by long baseline
interferometers after phase-coherent integration, provided that the polar
mountain is hydromagnetically stable. Magnetic burial also reduces the magnetic
dipole moment, mu, monotonically, implying a novel, observationally testable
scaling h_c(mu). The implications for the rotational evolution of (accreting)
X-ray and (isolated) radio millisecond pulsars are explored.
