Paper 4, Section I, C
Part II, 2017
(a) By considering a spherically symmetric star in hydrostatic equilibrium derive the pressure support equation
where is the radial distance from the centre of the star, is the stellar mass contained inside that radius, and and are the pressure and density at radius respectively.
(b) Propose, and briefly justify, boundary conditions for this differential equation, both at the centre of the star , and at the stellar surface .
Suppose that for some . Show that the density satisfies the linear differential equation
where , for some constant , is a rescaled radial coordinate. Find .