It is very naive to just picture a neutron star as a huge stack of neutrons. This is a semi-classical point of view. Neutrons are not fundamental particles : at the energies, pressures, density scales involved in neutrons stars, the intermost layers (the core) of the star must be a real soup of mesons and quarks (quark and gluon plasma, if such a thing exists). My point is the following : sure before we can claim to understand black hole formation, we need quantum gravity. Yet even before we have that at disposal, we need to understand quark matter.fargoth said:neutrons are fermions, with half spin, as such the must not occupy the same quantum state (meaning the wave functions can't overlap - atleast not with a big probability density portion of each other).
so, if neutron star is in the most dense state it can get, meaning its degenerate and every level is taken - how can it collapse?
humanino said:It is very naive to just picture a neutron star as a huge stack of neutrons. This is a semi-classical point of view. Neutrons are not fundamental particles : at the energies, pressures, density scales involved in neutrons stars, the intermost layers (the core) of the star must be a real soup of mesons and quarks (quark and gluon plasma, if such a thing exists). My point is the following : sure before we can claim to understand black hole formation, we need quantum gravity. Yet even before we have that at disposal, we need to understand quark matter.
(Now I'm waiting for Kea who will claim we cannot understand QCD (and especially the mass gap and confinement) before we reach quantum gravity theory tools :uhh:)
A neutron star collapse is a catastrophic event that occurs when a massive star runs out of fuel and can no longer produce enough energy to counteract the force of gravity. The star then collapses in on itself, resulting in a highly dense and compact object known as a neutron star.
A neutron star collapse is triggered when a massive star's core runs out of nuclear fuel. This causes the core to no longer produce enough thermal pressure to counteract the force of gravity. As a result, the core collapses in on itself, causing the star to become extremely dense and compact.
The Pauli Exclusion Principle states that no two fermions (particles with half-integer spin) can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. In neutron star collapse, protons and electrons are squeezed together under immense pressure, causing them to merge and form neutrons. The Pauli Exclusion Principle then comes into play, preventing the neutrons from occupying the same quantum state and resulting in the extreme density of a neutron star.
During a neutron star collapse, the star's size decreases significantly due to the immense gravitational force. The density of the star also increases dramatically, reaching up to 10^18 kg/m^3, making it one of the densest objects in the universe.
After a neutron star collapse, the remnants of the star continue to spin rapidly and emit strong electromagnetic radiation, making them visible as pulsars. Over time, these pulsars slow down and eventually become black holes, or in some cases, merge with other neutron stars to form even more massive objects.