NEW MASS LIMIT OF WHITE DWARFS

Das, Upasana and Mukhopadhyay, Banibrata (2013) NEW MASS LIMIT OF WHITE DWARFS. In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MODERN PHYSICS D, 22 (12, SI).

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Abstract

Is the Chandrasekhar mass limit for white dwarfs (WDs) set in stone? Not anymore, recent observations of over-luminous, peculiar type Ia supernovae can be explained if significantly super-Chandrasekhar WDs exist as their progenitors, thus barring them to be used as cosmic distance indicators. However, there is no estimate of a mass limit for these super-Chandrasekhar WD candidates yet. Can they be arbitrarily large? In fact, the answer is no! We arrive at this revelation by exploiting the flux freezing theorem in observed, accreting, magnetized WDs, which brings in Landau quantization of the underlying electron degenerate gas. This essay presents the calculations which pave the way for the ultimate (significantly super-Chandrasekhar) mass limit of WDs, heralding a paradigm shift 80 years after Chandrasekhar's discovery.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MODERN PHYSICS D
Publisher:	WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO PTE LTD
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to the World Scientific Publishing Company
Keywords:	White dwarfs; supernovae; stellar magnetic field; Landau levels; equation of state of gases
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	06 Feb 2014 05:36
Last Modified:	06 Feb 2014 05:36
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/48312

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