PHYS 175Problem Set 4 DUE: Monday, March 16 (in class)

1. White Dwarf Stars. In class we went through a rough derivation of the size of white dwarf stars,
WD, and the Chandrasekhar mass, Ch , beyond which quantum electron degeneracy pressure
can no longer support the weight of the star and it suffers a catastrophic gravitational collapse.
In this problem you will work through a slightly different derivation of WD and Ch . The point
is to give you experience at putting together a step-by-step logical physics argument, while
ignoring numerical factors, i.e., thinking like a physicist.

a. The pressure, c , required at the center of a star (be it a regular star or a white dwarf
star) to support the weight of the star can depend only on (the mass of the star),
(the radius of the star), and (the strength of the gravitational interaction). Use
dimensional analysis to construct a formula for c in terms of , , and , ignoring
numerical factors (no numbers in your formula!). Your equation should tell you that the
pressure increases as or increases, or as decreases. State briefly why these
dependencies on , and make sense.

b. Suppose that a white dwarf star of radius contains electrons in the form of an
electron gas (ignore the protons and neutrons: because they are much more massive,
their quantum degeneracy pressure is negligible at the radius of a white dwarf star).
According to the Pauli Exclusion Principle in quantum mechanics, each electron must be
in a different quantum state. Lets imagine dividing the volume of the star into tiny
cubes of side length , with one electron confined to each cube (in this way, each
electron is in a different quantum state in that it is in a different place). Moreover, the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in quantum mechanics says: , where
means is approximately equal to or greater than and = /2 is called the reduced
Planck constant. Roughly speaking, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle means that if
an electron is confined to a cube of side length , it will have a purely quantum
mechanical momentum, QM , whose magnitude (statistically) is at least approximately
QM ~ /. Notice that the smaller is, the larger QM is, i.e., electrons have a weird
kind of quantum mechanical claustrophobia. Ignoring numerical factors, figure out
the approximate volume of each cube, and hence , and thus show that the quantum
mechanical momentum of the electrons must be at least approximately

1
3
QM ~

Notice that we have the correct power (1/3) of in this equation (in class, we got this
by different reasoning).

c. Using Newtonian mechanics, estimate the kinetic energy per electron based on the
quantum mechanical momentum found in part (b). Then use the ideal gas law and the
definition of temperature in terms of kinetic energy ( = 32 ) to estimate QM , the
quantum mechanical degeneracy pressure this quantum mechanical momentum
creates. Again, ignore all numerical factors.
 d. In a stable white dwarf star, the quantum mechanical degeneracy pressure supports the
gravity-induced pressure derived in part (a). Equate c and QM to derive an estimate for
WD. (Eliminate from this equation by using the fact that the number of electrons is,
up to a factor of 2, or so, approximately equal to the number of protons and neutrons in
the star, i.e., ~ / , where is the mass of a proton.) Insert numbers (take to
be one solar mass) and calculate WD. Express your answer in terms of the radius of the
Earth. (Remember, it is , not , in the formula.)

e. Now imagine that the white dwarf star is slowing accreting matter from an orbiting
companion star. The number of electrons increases and the radius decreases (as
discussed in class); both effects cause QM derived in part (b) to increase. According to
Einstein, the electrons in the star must obey: 2 = 2 4 + 2 QM 2 , where is the
electron rest mass. As QM gets larger and larger, eventually 2 QM 2 becomes much
larger than 2 4 (the electrons are then called relativistic), and Einsteins equation
reduces to 2 2 QM 2 , or QM . This energy is kinetic energy. Repeat part (c)
starting with this relativistic relationship between kinetic energy and momentum to
show that the quantum pressure that relativistic electrons can exert is

4
3
QM ~
4

Again, ignore numerical factors in your derivation. Notice that this is quite different
from your result in part (c).

f. Equate the quantum pressure from part (e) with the gravity-induced pressure from part
(a). As in part (d), express in terms of . Notice that the radius of the star drops out
of this equation. Solve the equation for , instead. Thus, show that the Chandrasekhar
mass is approximately given by:

3
2

Ch ~ 4
3

Insert numbers and calculate Ch . Express your answer in terms of the solar mass, .
(Remember, it is , not , in the formula.)

2. Gravitational Collapse. In this problem we will see the huge amount of gravitational potential
energy that is converted into other forms of energy when the Nickel-Iron white dwarf core of a
massive star reaches the Chandrasekhar mass and collapses into a neutron star in a type II
supernova.

a. Gravitational Potential Energy for a Falling Rock. Suppose we have a star of mass
and radius .
i. If a rock of mass free-falls from a great height (effectively, from an infinite
height) down to the surface of the star, what is the change in gravitational
potential energy, grav , of the system? With a neutron star in mind
 ( ~ and ~ 13 km), estimate this energy for a 1 kg rock. Express your
answer in terms of the energy released in an atomic bomb (~ 1014 J).
ii. If the rock starts from rest, derive the general formulas for its kinetic energy and
speed just before it hits the surface. Evaluate your general formulas for the
values of , , and used in part (i). Express the speed as a fraction of .

b. Gravitational Potential Energy for Core Collapse. The point of part (a) is that as the rock
falls, gravitational potential energy is being converted into kinetic energy. If we replace
the falling rock of mass with a collapsing shell of mass (with the star at the center
of the shell), the change in gravitational potential energy is the same as you found in
part (i), and the kinetic energy and speed of the shell are the same as you found in part
(ii). If we think of a collapsing star as a concentric set of such free-falling shells, and use
a bit of calculus, it is not hard to show that the total gravitational potential energy of a
star of mass and radius , and uniform density, is given by
3 2
grav =
5

(You need not prove this.) This is the same formula discussed in class, except we have
included the correct numerical factor of 35. Observe that it is basically the same
formula you had in part (i), except with replaced by . Evaluate the above formula
for two cases:
i. The original Nickel-Iron white dwarf core of the massive star ( ~ and
~ , the radius of the Earth);
ii. The neutron star that results from the collapse ( ~ and ~ 13 km).
iii. What is the change in gravitational potential energy of the core when it
collapses? As discussed in class, this huge amount of gravitational potential
energy is converted almost entirely into the kinetic energy of escaping
neutrinos, and represents a significant outflow of mass (see part (c)).

c. Rest Mass Energy. How much energy is contained in the rest mass of a neutron star of
mass ~ ? The energy calculated in part (b)(iii) is what percentage of this rest mass
energy? Compare this to the relatively small (0.8%) efficiency of Hydrogen fusion.
Conclusion: Compressing matter into a neutron star is a fairly efficient way of
converting its mass into energy (actually, remember that the escaping energy carries
with it the lost mass, so mass is not really converted into energy).

3. Is Neutron Star Matter Dangerous? Suppose you have the technology to teleport one teaspoon
full of matter from inside a neutron star into your lab on Earth. Would this be a good idea? Lets
find out:

a. Explosive Decompression. Assume that at the instant the neutron star matter arrives in
your lab it has nuclear density (nucl 2 1017 kg/m3). Also, lets suppose your lab
room is a cube of side length 10 m.
i. About how many neutrons are in your teaspoon-sized sample (1 tsp = 5 mL)?
ii. As a gas originally under great pressure, your teaspoon of neutron star matter
will expand very quickly to fill your lab room. The pressures involved are so
great that you can completely neglect the air in the roomit might as well be a
 vacuum. What is the density of the gas when it has filled your lab room? How
many times denser than lead is this gas?
iii. When a neutron star first forms it has a hot surface, on the order of a million K,
and an even hotter interior. Suppose your sample (from inside the star) is
initially at a temperature of 10 million K. Since your sample is basically
expanding into a vacuum (see comment in part (ii)), it does negligible work as it
expands. Moreover, there is no thermal energy (heat) being added or
removed from the gas as it expands. Thus, energy conservation tells us that the
total energy of the gas does not change as it expands. Since the total energy of a
gas is the sum of the kinetic energies of its constituent particles, the kinetic
energies of the constituent particles does not change, either. In other words,
3
the kinetic energy of each neutron, = , remains constant during the
2
expansion. Estimate the total kinetic energy of all the neutrons in your
expanded sample. This is called the thermal energy of the gas. If you doused the
contents of your lab room in the Arctic Ocean, estimate by how many degrees
the temperature of the Arctic Ocean would rise. (The volume of the Arctic
Ocean is about 19 million km3, and it takes about 4,200 J to heat one kg of
water by one degree Celsius). Instant global warming!
3
iv. Using the same formula, = , estimate the typical speed of the neutrons,
2
and hence the expansion velocity. Compare this expansion velocity to the
detonation velocity of TNT (6,940 m/s). Estimate how long it will take the gas to
expand to fill the lab room. This is thousands of times faster than an air bag in a
car takes to inflate.
v. Using the ideal gas law, estimate the pressure of the gas when it has expanded
to fill the lab room. How much force does this pressure exert on one of the walls
of the lab room? Compare this to the weight of Mount Everest (~ 1.6 1015 N).
Do you think the walls of your lab could contain matter at this pressure?

b. Neutron Bomb. Even assuming the walls of your lab can contain the expanded neutron
star matter, you have a bigger problem. While bound neutrons inside stable nuclei, or
inside a neutron star, are stable, free neutrons are unstable. They will beta decay into a
proton plus an electron plus an antineutrino plus the kinetic energy of these particles
with a half-life of about 15 minutes: + + + .
i. Look up the rest masses of the particles involved in this reaction (except the
neutrinoits rest mass is negligible). Remember that mass is never converted
into energy, or vice-versa. Both total mass and total energy are always
conserved; mass and energy are in essence the same. Use the fact that kinetic
energy has inertia to determine the amount of released in this reaction.
ii. Determine the total amount of kinetic energy that will be released when all the
neutrons in your lab room beta decay. Compare this to the energy of an atomic
bomb (~ 1014 J). You dont need to show this, but this represents about one
atomic bomb for every 25 25 square meter patch on Earths surface. This
would destroy all life on Earth. Its not a good idea to bring it home!
4. Special Relativity

(a) Time Dilation & Length Contraction. In class we discussed the two diagrams below, and
how Newtons belief in universal time and Einsteins belief in universal relativity are logically
incompatible. If light is a wave in ether, then one of these two principles must be wrong.

i. According to universal relativity, Alice cannot tell that she is moving. The time taken
by the light pulse to travel from the floor to the ceiling and back to the floor again
must be the same for her, whether she is moving through the ether or not.
Assuming the distance from the floor to the ceiling is , write the algebraic
expression for Alice, the time taken when Alice is not moving through the ether
(diagram on the left).
ii. When Alice is moving through the ether (diagram on the right), Bob sees the light
pulse move diagonally up and then diagonally down. Ignoring the horizontal
component of the lights motion, use Pythagorass theorem to deduce the vertical
component of the velocity of the light pulse as seen by Bob. Use this result to write
the algebraic expression for Bob, the time taken by the light pulse to travel from
the floor to the ceiling and back to the floor again as measured by Bob.
iii. What is the ratio Alice /Bob? This is called relativistic time dilation. At what speed
must Alice be moving through the ether in order that Alice and Bob experience the
relative time dilation depicted in the diagram on the right?
iv. In part (ii) we noticed that Bob sees the vertical component of the velocity of the
light pulse to be less than . Does this mean that Alice also sees the vertical speed of
the light pulse to be less than ? Briefly explain (in one or two sentences) using the
idea of time dilation.
v. When Alice is moving relative to Bob, Alice and Bob disagree on how much time
elapses for the light pulse to travel from the floor to the ceiling and back again. This
disagreement will affect their measurements of how far Alice has travelled in her
rocket during this time. Let Bob denote the distance Bob measures, and Alice the
distance Alice measures. Assuming Alice sees Bob moving at the same speed that
Bob sees Alice moving, what is the ratio Alice /Bob ? This is called relativistic
length contraction.
(b) Speed Limit. It might seem weird that there is a speed limit in the universe (the speed of
light). What does it mean, and how is it enforced? In this part of the problem we will see
how time dilation and length contraction make a speed limit logically self-consistent and
perfectly sensible. Let = 11 2 2 denote the Lorentz factor involved in the time
dilation and length contraction discussed in part (a). Note: > 1, so to make something
larger you multiply by ; to make something smaller you divide by .
i. Imagine that Alice is at rest inside her rocket, which is moving relative to Bob with a
speed . Now suppose she starts running forward at 1 m/s, i.e., she is moving 1
metre every 1 second relative to her rocket, according to her ruler and clock.
1. How far is Alices 1 metre as measured by Bob? (Express your answer in
terms of .)
2. How long is Alices 1 second as measured by Bob? (Express your answer in
terms of .)
3. How fast is Alice running relative to her rocket, as measured by Bob?
(Express your answer in terms of .)
ii. As Alice begins to run, her speed inside the rocket changes from zero to 1 m/s, as
measured by her. From part (i), what is her speed change as measured by Bob? How
will this speed change as measured by Bob be affected by the speed of the rocket as
it gets closer to ? The point is that time dilation and length contraction enforce a
universal speed limit, and allow it to make sense.
iii. Suppose Alice needs to apply a constant force, , for one second, to get herself
running at 1 m/s. Now imagine, instead, that Bob reaches into her moving rocket
and pushes her with the same force, . (He stays at rest, but his hand moves very
quickly!) How long does he need to apply the force, according to his clock, to have
the same effect on Alice? The point is that its harder for Bob to accelerate Alice, as
if her mass somehow increases. But of course nothing happens to Alices mass. It is
time dilation that increases Alice's effective mass (inertia) as measured by Bob.

The point of this part is as follows: Suppose we give a particle some energy to accelerate it
from rest up to speed , e.g., 0.99 . By universal relativity we can catch up with the
particle and see it as at rest again. We can then repeat this process, accelerating the
particle from rest up to 0.99 relative to our new frame of reference. We can do this again
and again, forever. So a rocket could accelerate with a constant acceleration forever
(constant acceleration from the point of view of those aboard the rocket), even though the
speed of the rocket as measured in the original reference frame is limited by the nature of
time and space (length contraction and time dilation). Corresponding to this unlimited
acceleration, the amount of momentum and energy we can give a particle (or rocket), is
unlimited. The energy of a particle with rest mass 0 , moving at a speed , is given by

0 2
= 0 2 =
1 2 2

As approaches , the denominator goes to zero and goes to infinity. More importantly,
notice that when is close to , even very tiny changes in correspond to large changes in
. For example, going from 0.99 to 0.999 corresponds to an increase in energy by a
factor of more than 3 (as you can easily verify for yourself).
(c) = . In this part of the problem we will see in detail how the kinetic energy of particles
making up an object contributes to the inertia of that object. In particular, we will see how a
spinning dumbbell has greater inertia (more mass and more weight) than the same
dumbbell when it is not spinning.

Consider a dumbbell of total mass 0 that consists of two masses 0 /2 connected to the
ends of a massless rigid rod. We will spin the dumbbell about its centre such that, from the
point of view of an inertial (and hence non-rotating) observer sitting at the centre of the
dumbbell, each mass is moving with a speed . We will call this observer the dumbbell
observer. We will now give the dumbbell a push so that, in addition to its rotational motion,
the centre of the dumbbell (and the dumbbell observer) are drifting to the right with a
constant speed . The two diagrams show the configuration of the dumbbell as seen by us
(in the original inertial reference frame) at two instants of time: (1) when the end masses
are moving perpendicular to (diagram on the left); and (2) when the end masses are
moving parallel to (diagram on the right).

Inertia when in the Perpendicular Configuration. Let = 11 2 2 denote the

Lorentz factor involved in time dilation and length contraction. (As noted above, > 1, so
to make something larger you multiply by ; to make something smaller you divide by .)

i. Look at the diagram on the left. Consider the right end mass at the instant of time
that it is moving up with speed as measured by the dumbbell observer. From our
point of view, the centre of the dumbbell is also moving to the right with speed .
Let and denote the and components of the velocity of the right end mass
as seen by us. Obviously, = at this instant of time. Argue that

Hint: Use a simple time dilation argument. Note: the result for the left end mass is
obviously the same, except with the sign of reversed.
ii. Let 2 = 2 + 2 denote the squared speed of the right (or left) end mass as
measured by us. According to Special Relativity, the total energy (rest energy plus
kinetic energy) of each of the end masses is (0 2 /2)1 2 2 . Starting with
 this fact, and using the result of part (i), show that the total energy of the dumbbell
in the perpendicular configuration is

0 /1 2 2 2
=
1 2 2

Whats interesting is the interpretation of this result: In the numerator, 0 /

1 2 2 is the mass of a dumbbell that is spinning, but whose centre is at rest.
This mass includes the rest mass, 0 , as well as a contribution to the inertia coming
from the motion of the two end masses. We now set the system as a whole into
motion with speed . According to the above result, the effective mass of the whole
system is now 0 /1 2 2 (the mass of the spinning dumbbell at rest) divided
by 1 2 2, exactly as if the whole spinning dumbbell system is a single entity of
mass 0 /1 2 2 moving at speed . In other words, the internal motions of
parts of a system contribute to the inertia of the system as a whole.

Inertia when in the Parallel Configuration. Let be the same as above.

iii. Now look at the diagram on the right. Consider the bottom end mass at the instant
of time that it is moving to the right with speed as measured by the dumbbell
observer. From our point of view, the centre of the dumbbell is also moving to the
right with speed . As before, let and denote the and components of the
velocity of the bottom end mass as seen by us. Obviously, = 0. It can be shown
that
+
=
1+ 2

Notice that this formula for velocity addition is not simply = + , as in

Newtonian physics. The denominator is an important correction that reflects the
fact that objects do not move faster than the speed of light. 1 To see this, suppose
that the dumbbell observer sees the bottom mass moving to the right at speed
0.99 , and that we see the centre of the dumbbell moving to the right at speed
0.99 . How fast do we see the bottom mass moving? (Newtonian physics says
0.99 + 0.99 = 1.98 , but Special Relativity says something different!)
iv. Based on the formula in part (iii), guess the formula for for the top mass. Putting
everything together, show that the formula for the total energy of the dumbbell in
the parallel configuration is exactly the same as that given in part (ii) for the
perpendicular configuration. (Hint: This will involve a bit of algebra.) This shows that
the mass increase due to the kinetic energy of the parts of a system is isotropic
(independent of direction). For example, if we heat a gas in box, the average kinetic
energy of the molecules increases, and with it, the inertia of the box, regardless of
the direction of motion of the molecules.

1
This relativistic velocity addition formula is a simple consequence of time dilation, length contraction, and
relativity of simultaneity, but unfortunately it would require a bit too much explanation to ask you to derive it.
The point of part (c) is that if the spinning dumbbell was mounted inside a box moving with
speed , we would regard the rotational kinetic energy of the dumbbell as part of the rest
mass of the box, 0 = 0 /1 2 2 , i.e., the moving mass of the box would be

0 /1 2 2
= = 0
2 1 2 2

This leads to the idea that each end mass, with rest mass 0 /2, might itself be a box
containing a particle with lesser rest mass plus kinetic energy (or other forms of energy), and
so the rest mass 0 /2 is actually just the total (rest plus kinetic) mass of a lesser amount
of true rest mass, leading to an infinite regress, and the idea that perhaps all rest mass is
really some form of energy other than rest mass. For example, it is known that the rest
masses of the quarks making up a proton contribute to only about 1% of the protons rest
mass. The remainder of the protons rest mass is due to the kinetic energy of the quarks and
the potential energy of the gluon field that binds the quarks together. In short, the concepts
of mass and energy are deeply mysterious, and intimately intertwined with the very nature
of spacetime itself.