What exactly is Chandrashekar limit?

Answer 1

It's the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star.

Here's a website.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit

Answer 2

The Chandrasekhar limit is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun. If a white dwarf (normally formed with about 0.6 solar masses) were to exceed this mass through accretion, it would begin to collapse under gravity. It was once believed that this mechanism triggered Type Ia supernova explosions, but this idea fell out of favor in the 1960s. (The current view is that a carbon-oxygen white dwarf reaches an interior density sufficient to ignite runaway nuclear fusion just below the mass limit.) However, when iron cores of aging massive stars pass this limit, they do collapse, and this process is believed to initiate supernovae of Types Ib, Ic and II, releasing a vast amount of energy and a flood of neutrinos. The Chandrasekhar limit mass MCh is defined as:

M_{Ch} \approx \left ( \frac{\hbar c}{G}\right )^{3/2}\frac{1}{m_{p}^{2}}

where \hbar is the reduced Planck constant, c is the speed of light, G is the gravitational constant and mp is the mass of a proton.

The precise value depends on the chemical composition of the star.

Answer 3

First - the name is Chandrasekhar limit and not Chandrashekar limit.

Around 1930, S. Chandrasekhar 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. 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.

Answer 4

1.44 solar masses - the maximum mass a white dwarf can attain before undergoing collapse and subsequent explosion as a type Ia supernova.

However, recent observations have questioned this line of theory, as they appear to indicate an white dwarf of mass 2.1 solar masses, violating the Chandrasekhar limit.

Answer 5

let me think.....