Paper 3, Section I, D
(a) Write down an expression for the total gravitational potential energy of a spherically symmetric star of outer radius in terms of its mass density and the total mass inside a radius , satisfying the relation .
An isotropic mass distribution obeys the pressure-support equation,
where is the pressure. Multiply this expression by and integrate with respect to to derive the virial theorem relating the kinetic and gravitational energy of the star
where you may assume for a non-relativistic ideal gas that , with the average pressure.
(b) Consider a white dwarf supported by electron Fermi degeneracy pressure , where is the electron mass and is the number density. Assume a uniform density , so the total mass of the star is given by where is the proton mass. Show that the total energy of the white dwarf can be written in the form
where are positive constants which you should specify. Deduce that the white dwarf has a stable radius at which the energy is minimized, that is,