Relativity and Neutron Stars: I. The Maximum Mass of Neutron Stars. II. Gravitational Waves from Stellar Collapse.

Details Relativity and Neutron Stars: I. The Maximum Mass of Neutron Stars. II. Gravitational Waves from Stellar Collapse. Relativity and Neutron Stars: I. The Maximum Mass of Neutron Stars. II. Gravitational Waves from Stellar Collapse.

Jun 1977

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1977phdt.......156s&link_type=abstract

Thesis (PH.D.)--CORNELL UNIVERSITY, 1977.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-01, Section: B, page: 0250.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

The study of neutron stars provides us with an excellent example for the application of relativity to astrophysics. General relativity or any of the other relativistic theories of gravity will have important consequences for the birth, evolution and final state for such compact objects. We first look at the upper mass limit for neutron stars. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that such a limit does exit. Speculation about the identity of compact objects, especially that associated with the X-ray source Cygnus X-1, has heightened interest in an exact numerical value for this limit. Observation of a compact object with a mass greater than this limit would confirm the existence of black holes. We examine the sensitivity of the mass limits previously obtained to the assumptions made. As a first test, an alternate theory of gravitation, the Brans-Dicke theory, is used to obtain a mass limit for nonrotating neutron stars. Since rotation would be expected to increase the mass limit, we then check the effect of allowing rotation. In neither case was the mass limit found to change appreciably. The mass limit is, however, affected by our lack of complete knowledge about nuclear forces and the equation of state at high densities. At present, the best value for the mass limit is about three solar masses. Relativistic theories of gravitation predict the existence of gravitational waves. Several high sensitivity experiments are now being planned to detect gravitational waves from astrophysical sources. The collapse of a star to a compact object is expected to be an easily detected source with improved technology. By modeling such a star as a homogeneous ellipsoid with internal pressure, a more realistic determination of the emitted radiation can be made than with the previously studied pressureless case. We are able to catalogue the expected intensities, the spectra and waveforms for several initial configurations parameterized by their deviations from spherical and axial symmetry. These deviations are the result of rotation and internal magnetic fields. Neutrino emission may also be an important energy loss mechanism during stellar collapse. In fact, for the configurations studied here, the gravitation loss is always exceeded by the neutrino losses.

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