Chandrasekhar limit

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The maximum mass electron degeneracy pressure can support, conventionally quoted as about 1.4 solar masses. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar derived a maximum mass for ideal white dwarfs in a 1931 Astrophysical Journal paper; the number in that paper, under its own assumptions of complete degeneracy, was about 0.91 solar masses, and the familiar 1.4 emerged from his fuller treatment and the work that followed. The exact value depends on composition through the electron-to-nucleon ratio, so it is a physics result with inputs rather than a constant of nature. Above it there is no cold equilibrium configuration: the star must collapse further or explode. The limit is why a white dwarf is an ending for stars up to roughly eight solar masses and not for anything heavier. Not a place.

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