Chandra

His life ,work and legacy

 Early life
 Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar , known
to the world as Chandra was born on
October 19, 1910 in Lahore.
 Nephew of Nobel-prize winning physicist
C. V. Raman
 Had most of his school education by private
tuition
 Graduated from Presidency College,
Chennai with a degree in physics.(1930)
Chandra begins his stellar career
 Publishes first scientific paper in
the Proceedings of the Royal
Society in 1928,at age 18!
 Awarded a Government of India
scholarship for graduate studies
in Cambridge .
 Receives PhD in December
1933(rotating self-gravitating
polytropes)
 On the ship to England, discovers
Chandrasekhar limit.
 Chandrasekhar limit

 Itis the maximum mass possible for a white

dwarf star supported by electron degeneracy
pressure.
 Approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times
the mass of the Sun.
 Published in the Astrophysical Journal , in
March 1931.
How a normal star works
 Heat generated by nuclear fusion of atoms of lighter
elements into heavier ones in a star's core pushes the
atmosphere of the star out and balances the inward
force of gravity.
 Thus, a star is in equilibrium under the
action of two opposing forces. As the star
runs out of fuel, the atmosphere collapses
back on the star's core.

 If the star has a mass below the

Chandrasekhar limit, collapse is limited by
electron degeneracy pressure, resulting in
a stable white dwarf.
Electron degeneracy pressure
 Electron degeneracy follows from Pauli
Exclusion Principle. No two electrons can
occupy identical states.
 As the star contracts, all the lowest electron
energy levels are filled and the electrons are
forced into higher and higher energy levels,
in the order of increasing energy.
 This creates an effective pressure, preventing
further gravitational collapse.
White dwarf

Sirius B,is the

closest white dwarf
to the sun. It is a tiny
star in orbit around
the bright star Sirius.
 The equation
The approximate equation for the Chandrasekhar
limit is

 Mch = Chandrasekhar mass limit

 = reduced Planck’s constant
 G = Gravitational constant
 C = speed of light
 Mp = mass of proton
If the limit is exceeded…….
 Ifa star not capable of producing further
energy had a mass above the
Chandrasekhar limit, the pressure
exerted by electrons would be unable to
resist the force of gravity
 Density increases beyond that of a white
dwarf
 A neutron star, or a black hole is the
result
 Stages in a star’s life
Main sequence – As hydrogen runs out
Hydrogen undergoes star expands to become
fusion to form helium a red giant

If not very massive

If massive

White dwarf
formed via
SUPERNOVA
planetary nebula

If enough mass is gained

by accretion to go above
Core collapses to form a Chandrasekhar limit
neutron star

If still massive
Black hole forms
 Chandra’s insight
• Non-relativistically, a white dwarf may be
arbitrarily massive.
• But, velocities of the electrons approach
the speed of light, and special relativity
must be taken into account. The classical
approximation is no longer appropriate.
• The result is that a limiting mass
emerges for a self-gravitating, spherically
symmetric body supported by degeneracy
pressure.
 The struggle

 Upon presentation in a
Royal Astronomical
Society meeting in 1935,
Chandra was criticized
by Arthur Eddington.
 Leading physicists
unwilling to openly
support his work although
many approved privately.
 Embittered, he moved to
the United States .
 Across the Atlantic
 Initially,
he worked at Yerkes Observatory, in
Wisconsin.
 Later moved to work on the University of
Chicago campus, in 1937.
 During World War II ,worked in the Ballistic
Research Laboratories in Maryland.
 In 1936,he married Lalitha Doraiswamy ,who
was a fellow student at Presidency College.
 At Chicago

 He was appointed Morton D Hull

distinguished service professor of the
University of Chicago in 1952.
 He and his wife became naturalized citizens
of the United States in 1953.
 Chandra was a popular teacher who guided
over fifty students to their Ph.D.s ,including
two Nobel Prize winners
 His research work
 Chandra published around 400 papers
and published ten books, all of them
classics in their respective topics.
 His research interests were exceptionally
broad.
 Explored nearly all branches of theoretical
astrophysics
 His research topics

The areas in which he worked included :

 stellar structure, and the theory of white
dwarfs
 stellar dynamics, including the theory of
Brownian motion
 quantum theory of the negative ion of
hydrogen , the theory of planetary
atmospheres, including the theory of the
illumination and the polarization of the sunlit
sky
 hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic
stability
 equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal
figures of equilibrium
 general theory of relativity and relativistic
astrophysics
 mathematical theory of black holes
Astrophysical Journal
 From 1952 until 1971
Chandra was editor of
the Astrophysical Journal

 Originally a local
University of Chicago
publication, it grew in
stature to become
national publication of the
American Astronomical
Society, then a leading
international journal.
 Nobel Prize
 Awarded the 1983 Nobel
Prize in Physics (shared
with William Alfred Fowler)
for his studies on the
physical processes
important to the structure
and evolution of stars .

 Upset that the citation

mentioned only his earliest
work, seeing this as a
denigration of a lifetime's
achievement.
 Further Honours
Fellow of Royal Society(1944)
Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1949)
Bruce Medal (1952)
Gold Medal of Royal Astronomical Society(1953)
Royal Medal of Royal Society(1962)
National Medal of Science(1967)
Henry Draper Medal (1971)
Copley Medal of the Royal Society (1984)
Chandra X-Ray Observatory
 In 1999, NASA named the third of its four "Great
Observatories'" after Chandrasekhar
 The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched
and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July
23, 1999.
 End of an era
 Chandra retired in
1980 but continued
to live in Chicago
where he was made
professor emeritus in
1985.
 Aged 85,Chandra
died from heart
failure on August 21,
1995 and was buried
in Chicago.
 Bibliography
 Chandrasekhar and his limit
by G.Venkataraman
 Chandra:A biography of S.Chandrasekhar
by Kameshwar Wali
 Chandra:The man behind the legend
by Kameshwar Wali