Thread: Iron core in white dwarfs?

I was just reading up on white dwarfs for another thread and got thinking about what happens to the iron content of the original star. (2%)

Would I be correct in thinking that most of the processes involved in going through the red giant phase to forming a white dwarf, would tend to concentrate the iron into the core?

Then if you assume that the iron crushes down in a similar way, to the carbon & oxygen. does it make an even denser core at the centre of a star crushed down to the size of the earth?

Any guesses on what effect and iron core would have?

yes, as stars age the core becomes denser. That is why the fusion rate increases.


according to wolfram

the density of iron is

7.8 g/cm^3

the density of the solar core is

(34 to 150) g/cm^3 (grams per cubic centimeter)

white dwarf star mean density

2.1 * 10^6 g/cm^3

The question is, is electron-degenerate iron denser than electron-degenerate carbon/oxygen?
Or does it take more pressure to force iron down to the same density?

https://www.llnl.gov/str/Schneider.html. .

The extreme conditions in white dwarf stars lead to highly ionized plasmas that are essentially bare nuclei of mostly carbon and oxygen, stripped of all their electrons. The electrons form a uniform background of negative charge, confining the star plasma much as the microplasma is confined by electric and magnetic fields in the RETRAP


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The site above has an interesting outcome; both ends of the specturm, from extreme hot to extreme cold produce the same results. Have been looking for such .