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First, let me explain the question a little further. The Hulse-Taylor binary is a binary system composed of two neutron stars orbiting each other. Each star is an extended body, and is in the gravitational field of the other, so should experience tidal forces, because one part of the star is closer than another to the opposite star, so the gravitational ...

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A holistic way to think about this is to consider the energy density of the gas that makes up a system. In the core of a star like the Sun we could write this down as $$u = u_p + u_e + u_{\rm He} + u_z,$$ where $u_p$ is the energy density of the protons (including their rest mass), $u_{e}$ ditto for the electrons, $u_{\rm He}$ ditto for the helium nuclei and ...

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In a degenerate gas of fermions, the fermions fully occupy momentum states from zero up to a momentum corresponding to the Fermi energy. It is the momentum of the fermions that leads to degeneracy pressure. As long as the kinetic energy of particles at the Fermi energy is much less than $kT$, then the fermions can be considered completely degenerate, so ...

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There is a very general theorem that there is no stable configuration of matter that can exist above a threshhold that fundamentally just depends on the mass of the constituent particles that make up the matter (and the interatomic forces in the matter). There is some debate about the exact limit for neutron stars, but it is something like 2.5 - 3 solar ...

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