Overview

The inspiration for this project began with some work I did to understand whether rapidly rotating white dwarfs could be good sources for LISA (follow this link). It turns out that the equations of the structure of a magnetized white dwarf are quite elegant if the equation of state of the material comprising the star is such that the pressure is a function of density alone, i.e. the equation of state is barotropic.

In neutron stars a strong magnetic field dramatically affects the cooling and emission from the star. One would suspect that the same is the case for strongly magnetized white dwarf stars. Additionally the surface magnetic fields of the most strongly magnetized white dwarfs are around 10⁹G. The equipartition magnetic field for a white dwarf is around 10¹²G. Unlike neutron stars the density of white dwarfs decrease gradually from the core to the surface, so the magnetic field might significantly distort the surface layers.

Goals

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