Violation of Chandrasekhar Mass Limit: The Exciting Potential of Strongly Magnetized White Dwarfs

Abstract

We consider a relativistic, degenerate, electron gas under the influence of a strong magnetic field, which describes magnetized white dwarfs. Landau quantization changes the density of states available to the electrons, thus modifying the underlying equation of state. In the presence of very strong magnetic fields a maximum of either one, two or three Landau level(s) is/are occupied. We obtain the mass-radius relations for such white dwarfs and their detailed investigation leads us to propose the existence of white dwarfs having a mass ~2.3M_Sun, which overwhelmingly exceeds the Chandrasekhar mass limit.

10 pages including 4 figures; received Honorable Mention for the Gravity Research Foundation 2012 Awards for Essays on Gravitation; version to appear in IJMPD