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danielravennest t1_itub6gb wrote

Reply to comment by Treczoks in Lightest neutron star ever found could contain compressed quarks | New Scientist by GullyShotta

The thing is, current theory says you can't have neutron stars below 1.4 solar masses. At lower masses you get a "white dwarf", which consists of a soup of atomic nucleii and electrons. Above the critical mass, the protons and electrons are compressed to neutrons, making a neutron star.

So the possibilities are our theory is wrong, our mass estimate is wrong, or it is an odd looking white dwarf and both theory and mass estimate are right.

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Treczoks t1_itv3cu5 wrote

"can't have" as in "A mass packed down to neutrons like a neutron star would expand and leave the neutron star phase if it dropped below the mass threshold"? My idea was that once it is packed down to neutrons, it will stay there, and not return to atoms with protons and electrons in the mix. So I thought that this could have happened just like with supernovas that shed an outer layer while the core keeps compressing.

I understand that from the plain mass aspect, you need more tha 1.4 sun masses to compress the nuclei+e soup down to neutrons. But in the end what you need is some energy to do his compression. It might come from mass, it might come from a solar collision, or, what I suggested, that the original mass was sufficiently critical to compress the core down to neutrons, but during this process something happened (radiation energy coming from the collaps of the core?) that blew the not-yet-converted-to-neutron outer parts away. Of course, this idea can only work if a neutron star will stay a neutron star once converted.

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danielravennest t1_itvgcvz wrote

> But in the end what you need is some energy to do his compression.

Gravity is what is doing the compression. The self-gravity of all the material squeezes the center into neutronium (a solid mass of neutrons).

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