Ken G said:
Then when the heating runs away for the whole star, in the heating way, what stabilizes it,
Increasing contribution of thermal pressure.
Ken G said:
I'm sure you'll find that's all due to the deviation from ideal gas physics. It could be included as some kind of addendum to the derivation of this thread, along the lines of how things are different if the temperature does not come directly from the average kinetic energy per particle as it does in an ideal gas.
Yes, it is the contribution of degeneracy pressure.
Now imagine a shrinking ball of gas, and make the assumption that its radial distribution of temperature and density remains unchanged, that it obeys ideal gas laws, and also that its heat capacity is constant (this last is least likely).
If the radius shrinks twice
then the density increases 8 times
the surface gravity increases 4 times
the pressure of a column of fixed depth thus increases 32 times
since the column of gas from surface to centre gets 2 times shorter, the central pressure grows 16 times
but since the central density grew just 8 times, the central temperature must have doubled.
Now, think what degeneracy pressure does.
If you heat water at 1 atmospheres from 273 K to 277 K, it does NOT expand 1,5 % like an ideal gas would - it actually shrinks.
When you heat water from 277 K to 373 K, it does expand - but not 35 % like ideal gas, only 1,5 %
Then, when you heat water from 373,14 to 373,16 K, it expands over 1000 times!
If you heat water at higher pressures, you will find:
that it is slightly denser, because very slightly compressed, at any equal temperature below boiling point
that the boiling point rises with pressure
that water expands on heating near the boiling point at all pressures over about 0,01 atm
that the density of water at boiling point decreases with higher temperature and pressure
that steam, like ideal gas, expands on heating at each single pressure
that steam, like ideal gas, is compressed by pressure at each single temperature
that the density of steam at boiling point increases with pressure and temperature
that the contrast between boiling water and boiling steam densities decreases with temperature and pressure.
At about 220 atmosphere pressure, the contrast disappears.
Now, if you heat water at slightly over 220 bar then the thermal expansion still starts very slight at low temperatures but increases and is, though continuous, very rapid around the critical point (a bit over 374 Celsius).
But when you increase pressure further, you would find that the increase of water thermal expansion from the low temperature liquid-like minimal expansion to the ideal gas expansion proportional to temperature would take place at increasing temperatures and also become monotonous, no longer having a maximum near the critical point.
And interiors of planets and stars typically have much higher pressures than critical pressure. The transition between liquidlike behaviour of little thermal expansion and mainly degeneracy pressure at low temperature, and ideal-gas-like behaviour of volume or pressure proportional to temperature and mainly thermal particle pressure, would be continuous and monotonous.