UV AND IR QUANTUM-SPACETIME EFFECTS FOR THE CHANDRASEKHAR MODEL

Abstract

We modify the Chandrasekhar model of white dwarfs by introducing some of the momentum-space features which have been considered in the quantum-gravity literature. We find that when the new effects are confined to high energies, one only finds significant corrections to the Chandrasekhar model in regimes where the model anyway lacks any contact with observations. But these high-energy effects could play an important role in cases where ultra-high densities are present, even when the relevant star is still gigantic in Planck-length units. If the effects are not confined to high energies, as a result of "ultraviolet/infrared mixing", there could be significant implications for white dwarfs whose mass is roughly half the mass of the Sun, some of which are described in the literature as "strange white dwarfs".