This entry contributed by Dana Romero
Around 1930, S. Chandrasekhar Eric Weisstein's World of Biography studied astrophysical models of white dwarf stars and came to the conclusion that no white dwarf can be more massive than about 1.2 solar masses Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy (). This became known as the Chandrasekhar limit. Chandrasekhar was awarded the Nobel Prize for these studies, and went on to study stellar structure, resulting in the concept of black holes.
A simple treatment of the problem for a relativistic white dwarf gives
where is the mean number of nucleons per electron. For iron, which has the highest binding fraction, and
A more careful treatment gives
(Weinberg 1972, p. 306). A more modern value is Shu (1982, p. 128) gives
Black Hole, Electron Degeneracy Pressure, White Dwarf
References
Chandrasekhar, S. "The Density of White Dwarf Stars." Philos. Mag. 11, 592, 1931.
Chandrasekhar, S. "The Maximum Mass of Ideal White Dwarfs." Astrophys. J. 74, 81-82, 1931.
Chandrasekhar, S. "Stellar Configurations with Degenerate Cores." Observatory 57, 373, 1934.
Chandrasekhar, S. The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Landau, L. D. "On the Theory of Stars." Phys. Z. Sowjetunion 1, 285, 1932.
Misner, C. W.; Thorne, K. S.; and Wheeler, J. A. Gravitation. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman, 1973.
Shu, F. H. The Physical Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy. Mill Valley, CA: University Science Books, p. 128, 1982.
Shapiro, S. L. and Teukolsky, S. A. Black Holes, White Dwarfs, and Neutron Stars: The Physics of Compact Objects. New York: Wiley, 1983.
Weinberg, S. Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity. New York: Wiley, 1972.
