NATS 1585 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Degenerate Matter, Event Horizon, Light Curve
21 Sep 2017
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Document Summary
White dwarfs with same mass as sun are about same size as the earth. Quantum mechanics: electrons must move faster as they are squeezed into a very small space. The temperature of accreted matter eventually becomes hot enough for hydrogen fusion. Fusion begins suddenly and explosively causing nova. The nova star system temporarily appears much brighter. Massive star supernova: iron core of a massive star reaches white dwarf limit and collapses into a neutron star, causing total explosion. White dwarf supernova: carbon fusion suddenly begins as a white dwarf in close binary system reaches white dwarf limit, causing total explosion. One way to tell supernova types apart is with a light curve showing how luminosity changes with time. Supernova are much more luminous about 100 thousand times. Spectra differ (exploding white dwarfs don"t have hydrogen absorption lines) A neutron star is the ball of neutrons left behind by a massive-star supernova.
