Chandrasekhar limit

The maximum mass, about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass, that electron degeneracy pressure can support in a stable white dwarf. Above it, a white dwarf cannot remain supported against gravitational collapse.

Electron degeneracy pressure: Pressure arising from the quantum-mechanical exclusion of electrons from identical states. It supports a white dwarf against gravity and sets the limit.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: An Indian-American astrophysicist whose work on stellar structure established the white-dwarf mass limit. His 1930s calculations gave the limit its name and physical basis.
Type Ia supernova: A thermonuclear stellar explosion, usually involving a carbon–oxygen white dwarf in a binary system. White dwarfs approaching the limit can ignite runaway nuclear burning and explode.
Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit: The maximum mass of a stable neutron star allowed by general relativity and the equation of state of dense matter. It is the corresponding stability limit for neutron stars, not white dwarfs.
Electron degeneracy: The condition in which electrons fill available quantum states up to a high Fermi energy. Its quantum-state filling determines how pressure changes as the star is compressed.
Ralph H. Fowler: A British physicist who applied Fermi–Dirac statistics to the dense matter in white dwarfs. His 1926 explanation of white-dwarf support supplied a key starting point.
Carbon–oxygen white dwarf: A white dwarf composed mostly of carbon and oxygen, typically left by a Sun-like star. This common white-dwarf composition is central to many models of Type Ia supernovae.
Eddington limit: The luminosity at which outward radiation pressure balances inward gravitational attraction in a star or accretion flow. Despite the shared name, it limits luminosity rather than white-dwarf mass.
Fermi energy: The energy of the highest occupied quantum state in a system of fermions at zero temperature. It rises as electrons are packed into a white dwarf’s shrinking volume.
Fermi–Dirac statistics: Quantum statistics governing indistinguishable fermions, which cannot occupy the same quantum state. They describe the electron population whose pressure Chandrasekhar calculated.

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