Abstract
Chandrasekhar’s models assumed white dwarfs to be fully degenerate—that is, effectively at zero temperature. Of course, no real star has temperature of zero. The reality that a white dwarf emits observable radiation means that the surface temperature not only is non-zero but in fact is rather high.
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Notes
- 1.
Holberg (2007), p. 149.
- 2.
Marshak (1982), p. xi.
- 3.
Marshak, Robert E. 1940, Astrophys. J., 92, 321, “The Internal Temperature of White Dwarf Stars.”
- 4.
Data from Van Horn, H. M. (1971), in Luyten (1971), p. 97, “Cooling of White Dwarfs.”
- 5.
Melissinos and Van Horn (1993), pp. 1–3.
- 6.
Lee, T. D. 1950, Astrophys. J., 111, 625, “Hydrogen Content and Energy-Productive Mechanism of White Dwarfs.”
- 7.
A supernova explosion, to which we shall return later, is vastly more energetic than a nova outburst and involves the incineration and disruption of the entire star.
- 8.
Mestel, L. 1952, Mon. Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 112, 583, “On the Theory f White Dwarf Stars. I. The Energy Sources of White Dwarfs”; summarized by Van Horn 1971, op. cit.
- 9.
Mestel’s career is summarized in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Mestel, accessed April 23, 2012.
References
Holberg, J. B. (2007). Sirius: Brightest Diamond in the Night Sky. New York: Springer.
Luyten, W. J. (Ed.). (1971). White Dwarfs. Reidel: Dordrecht.
Marshak, Robert E. 1982, Academic Renewal in the 1970s: Memoirs of a City College President (University Press of America: Washington, DC).
Melissinos, A. C., and Van Horn, H. M., eds. 1993, Robert E. Marshak, 1916—1992, Tributes to His Memory (University of Rochester: Rochester, NY).
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Van Horn, H.M. (2015). Still Pretty Hot for a Fading Old Star!. In: Unlocking the Secrets of White Dwarf Stars. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09369-7_6
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