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The pressure exerted by the electrons is related to their kinetic energy. The degeneracy pressure is most prominent at low temperatures: If electrons were classical particles, the movement of the electrons would cease at absolute zero and the pressure of the electron gas would vanish.
While degeneracy pressure usually dominates at extremely high densities, it is the ratio between degenerate pressure and thermal pressure which determines degeneracy. Given a sufficiently drastic increase in temperature (such as during a red giant star's helium flash ), matter can become non-degenerate without reducing its density.
The Chandrasekhar limit is a consequence of competition between gravity and electron degeneracy pressure. Electron degeneracy pressure is a quantum-mechanical effect arising from the Pauli exclusion principle. Since electrons are fermions, no two electrons can be in the same state, so not all electrons can be in the minimum-energy level.
Instead, it is supported only by electron degeneracy pressure, causing it to be extremely dense. The physics of degeneracy yields a maximum mass for a non-rotating white dwarf, the Chandrasekhar limit— approximately 1.44 times M ☉ — beyond which electron degeneracy pressure cannot
Conversely, two or more different states of a quantum mechanical system are said to be degenerate if they give the same value of energy upon measurement. The number of different states corresponding to a particular energy level is known as the degree of degeneracy (or simply the degeneracy) of the level.
Consequently, degenerate stars collapse into very high densities. More massive degenerate stars are smaller, because the gravitational force increases, but pressure does not increase proportionally. Electron-degenerate matter is found inside white dwarf stars. Electrons remain bound to atoms but are able to transfer to adjacent atoms.
This exotic form of matter is known as degenerate matter. The immense gravitational force of a star's mass is normally held in equilibrium by thermal pressure caused by heat produced in thermonuclear fusion in the star's core. In white dwarfs, which do not undergo nuclear fusion, an opposing force to gravity is provided by electron degeneracy ...
Cross-section of neutron star. Here, the core has neutrons or neutron-degenerate matter and quark matter.. Neutronium is used in popular physics literature [1] [2] to refer to the material present in the cores of neutron stars (stars which are too massive to be supported by electron degeneracy pressure and which collapse into a denser phase of matter).