Compact stars for undergraduates

Abstract

We report on an undergraduate student project initiated in the summer semester of 2004 with the aim to establish equations of state for white dwarfs and neutron stars for computing mass-radius relations as well as corresponding maximum masses. First, white dwarfs are described by a Fermi gas model of degenerate electrons and neutrons, and effects from general relativity are examined. For neutron star matter, the influence of a finite fraction of protons and electrons and of strong nucleon-nucleon interactions are studied. The nucleon-nucleon interactions are introduced within a Hartree-Fock scheme using a Skyrme-type interaction. Finally, masses and radii of neutron stars are computed for a given central pressure. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.