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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.
Using the Fermi gas as a model, it is possible to calculate the Chandrasekhar limit, i.e. the maximum mass any star may acquire (without significant thermally generated pressure) before collapsing into a black hole or a neutron star. The latter, is a star mainly composed of neutrons, where the collapse is also avoided by neutron degeneracy ...
In the nonrelativistic case, electron degeneracy pressure gives rise to an equation of state of the form P = K 1 ρ 5/3, where P is the pressure, ρ is the mass density, and K 1 is a constant. Solving the hydrostatic equation leads to a model white dwarf that is a polytrope of index 3 / 2 – and therefore has radius inversely ...
This is the pressure that prevents a white dwarf star from collapsing. A star exceeding this limit and without significant thermally generated pressure will continue to collapse to form either a neutron star or black hole, because the degeneracy pressure provided by the electrons is weaker than the inward pull of gravity.
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).
In thermodynamics, the reduced properties of a fluid are a set of state variables scaled by the fluid's state properties at its critical point.These dimensionless thermodynamic coordinates, taken together with a substance's compressibility factor, provide the basis for the simplest form of the theorem of corresponding states.
Some massive stars collapse to form neutron stars at the end of their life cycle, as has been both observed and explained theoretically.Under the extreme temperatures and pressures inside neutron stars, the neutrons are normally kept apart by a degeneracy pressure, stabilizing the star and hindering further gravitational collapse. [2]
Rather, the intense gravitational attraction of the compact mass overcomes the electron degeneracy pressure and causes electron capture to occur within the star. The result is a compact ball of nearly pure neutron matter with sparse protons and electrons interspersed, filling a space several thousand times smaller than the progenitor star. [4]