{
  "id": "1305.3987",
  "version": "v2",
  "published": "2013-05-17T05:42:56.000Z",
  "updated": "2013-09-03T05:26:48.000Z",
  "title": "New mass limit of white dwarfs",
  "authors": [
    "Upasana Das",
    "Banibrata Mukhopadhyay"
  ],
  "comment": "6 pages; received Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation 2013 Awards for Essays on Gravitation; version accepted for publication in IJMPD",
  "journal": "IJMPD 22, No. 12 (2013) 1342004",
  "doi": "10.1142/S0218271813420042",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.HE",
    "astro-ph.SR",
    "gr-qc"
  ],
  "abstract": "Is the Chandrasekhar mass limit for white dwarfs (WDs) set in stone? Not anymore -- recent observations of over-luminous, peculiar type Ia supernovae can be explained if significantly super-Chandrasekhar WDs exist as their progenitors, thus barring them to be used as cosmic distance indicators. However, there is no estimate of a mass limit for these super-Chandrasekhar WD candidates yet. Can they be arbitrarily large? In fact, the answer is no! We arrive at this revelation by exploiting the flux freezing theorem in observed, accreting, magnetized WDs, which brings in Landau quantization of the underlying electron degenerate gas. This essay presents the calculations which pave the way for the ultimate (significantly super-Chandrasekhar) mass limit of WDs, heralding a paradigm shift 80 years after Chandrasekhar's discovery.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v2",
      "updated": "2013-09-03T05:26:48.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "subjects": [
      "97.20.Rp",
      "97.60.Bw",
      "97.10.Ld",
      "71.70.Di",
      "51.30.+i"
    ],
    "keywords": [
      "white dwarfs",
      "peculiar type ia supernovae",
      "cosmic distance indicators",
      "super-chandrasekhar wd candidates",
      "chandrasekhar mass limit"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "journal article"
    ],
    "publication": {
      "journal": "International Journal of Modern Physics D",
      "year": 2013,
      "month": "Sep",
      "volume": 22,
      "number": 12,
      "pages": 1342004
    },
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 6,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "inspire": 1233834,
      "adsabs": "2013IJMPD..2242004D"
    }
  }
}