2013/06/30 by Jaziel G. Coelho, J. G. Coelho, R. M. Marinho +6 · 41 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Chandrasekhar limit #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #General relativity #Geometry #Instability #Massive compact halo object #Particle physics #Physics #Population #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum mechanics #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Supernova #Symmetry (geometry) #Symmetry breaking #Theoretical physics #White dwarf #astro-ph.SR #gr-qc #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/794/1/86
published in The Astrophysical Journal 794(1), 86 (IOP Publishing) · 7 pages, 2 figures
openalex publication_date 2014/09/25 · arxiv created 2014/09/26 · arxiv updated 2014/09/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Massive, highly magnetized white dwarfs with fields up to 10 9 G have been observed and theoretically used for the description of a variety of astrophysical phenomena. Ultramagnetized white dwarfs with uniform interior fields up to 10 18 G have been recently purported to obey a new maximum mass limit, M max ≈ 2.58 M ☉ , which largely overcomes the traditional Chandrasekhar value, M Ch ≈ 1.44 M ☉ . Such a larger limit would make these astrophysical objects viable candidates for the explanation of the superluminous population of Type Ia supernovae. We show that several macro and micro physical aspects such as gravitational, dynamical stability, breaking of spherical symmetry, general relativity, inverse β decay, and pycnonuclear fusion reactions are of most relevance for the self-consistent description of the structure and assessment of stability of these objects. It is shown in this work that the first family of magnetized white dwarfs indeed satisfy all the criteria of stability, while the ultramagnetized white dwarfs are very unlikely to exist in nature since they violate minimal requests of stability. Therefore, the canonical Chandrasekhar mass limit of white dwarfs still has to be applied.