Selected Honorable Mention EssaysNo Access

VIOLATION OF CHANDRASEKHAR MASS LIMIT: THE EXCITING POTENTIAL OF STRONGLY MAGNETIZED WHITE DWARFS

UPASANA DAS

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India

Search for more papers by this author

and

BANIBRATA MUKHOPADHYAY

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India

Search for more papers by this author

https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218271812420011Cited by:32 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

We consider a relativistic, degenerate, electron gas under the influence of a strong magnetic field, which describes magnetized white dwarfs. Landau quantization changes the density of states available to the electrons, thus modifying the underlying equation of state. In the presence of very strong magnetic fields a maximum of either one, two or three Landau level(s) is/are occupied. We obtain the mass–radius relations for such white dwarfs and their detailed investigation leads us to propose the existence of white dwarfs having a mass ~2.3M_⊙, which overwhelmingly exceeds the Chandrasekhar mass limit.

This essay received an honorable mention in the 2012 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.

Keywords:

PACS: 97.20.Rp, 67.85.Lm, 71.70.Di, 97.10.Ld, 51.30.+i

You currently do not have access to the full text article.
Recommend the journal to your library today!

References

S. Chandrasekhar, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 95, 207 (1935). ADS, Google Scholar
J. C. Kempet al., Astrophys. J. 161, L77 (1970), DOI: 10.1086/180574. Web of Science, Google Scholar
A. Putney, Astrophys. J. Lett. 451, L67 (1995), DOI: 10.1086/309689. ADS, Google Scholar
G. D. Schmidt and P. S. Smith, Astrophys. J. 448, 305 (1995), DOI: 10.1086/175962. Web of Science, ADS, Google Scholar
D. Reimerset al., Astron. Astrophys. 311, 572 (1996). Web of Science, ADS, Google Scholar
S. Jordan, White Dwarfs: Proc. 10th European Workshop214, Astrophysics and Space Science Library, eds. J. Isern, M. Hernanz and E. Garcia-Berro (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997) p. 397. Google Scholar
J. P. Ostriker and F. D. A. Hartwick, Astrophys. J. 153, 797 (1968), DOI: 10.1086/149706. Web of Science, ADS, Google Scholar
R. A. Scalzoet al., Astrophys. J. 713, 1073 (2010), DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/713/2/1073. Web of Science, Google Scholar
I. Hachisuet al., Astrophys. J. 744, 69 (2012), DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/744/1/69. Web of Science, ADS, Google Scholar
A. Kundu and B. Mukhopadhyay, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 27, 1250084 (2012), DOI: 10.1142/S0217732312500848. Link, Web of Science, Google Scholar
D. Lai and S. L. Shapiro, Astrophys. J. 383, 745 (1991), DOI: 10.1086/170831. Web of Science, ADS, Google Scholar
A. R. Choudhuri , Astrophysics for Physicists ( Cambridge University Press , 2010 ) . Google Scholar
U. Das and B. Mukhopadhyay, Phys. Rev. D 86, 042001 (2012), arXiv:1204.1262 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.86.042001. Web of Science, Google Scholar
S. L. Shapiro and S. A. Teukolsky , Black Holes, White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars: The Physics of Compact Objects ( John Willey & Sons, Inc , 1983 ) . Google Scholar
M. Sinha and B. Mukhopadhyay , arXiv:1005.4995 . Google Scholar
E. J. Ferreret al., Phys. Rev. C 82, 5802 (2010), DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.82.065802. Google Scholar
M. Bocquetet al., Astron. Astrophys. 301, 757 (1995). Web of Science, ADS, Google Scholar