Chandrasekhar limit

[soandos]

I am sorry to say that i am new to just about all of astrophysics, but while several unrelated things up, i was curious about the following:

since the Chandrasekhar limit is about 1.4 solar masses how is it that there are neutron stars that are more massive than this? what is the effect of spin if the limit? is there a way for the energy density to relate to the pressure in a star?

[Janus]

The Chandrasekhar limit determines the limit of mass for a white dwarf. IOW, anything over this limit is either a neutron star or black hole. The boundary between neutron star and black hole is more like 3 solar masses.

[Chronos]

Beyond the Chandrasekhar limit you must deal with the equation of state for condensed matter. It's not pretty. A significant issue is whether or not black holes can directly result from a stellar collapse event. Too much mass is expelled for my comfort level. I think inspiralling binary neutron stars can do the trick, but these are rare and take a very long time to merge. Something fundamental is missing IMO.