Summary: 4. This is a simplified version of the relativistic calculation that we performed for a white dwarf. Here we
immediately take the electrons to be highly relativistic. As before, assume that the inward gravitational pressure
can be modeled by
Pgrav =
!
4"
GM 2
R4 , V =
4
3
"R3
, M = 2Nmp
where ! ! 1, G = 6.67 !10"11
N m2
/ kg2
is the gravitational constant, M is the mass, R is the radius, V is the
volume, N is the number of electrons (in the white dwarf), and mp = 1.67 !10"27
kg is the mass of a proton.
The relativistic expression for the energy ! of an electron is
!2

Source: Allen, Roland E. - Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University

Collections: Physics