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Degenerate gas
Degenerate gas, in physics, a particular configuration, usually reached at high densities, of a gas composed of subatomic particles with half-integral intrinsic angular momentum (spin). Such particles are called fermions, because their microscopic behaviour is regulated by a set of quantum mechanical rules—Fermi-Dirac statistics (q.v.). These rules state, in particular, that there can be only one fermion occupying each quantum-mechanical state of a system. As particle density is increased, the additional fermions are forced to occupy states of higher and higher energy, because the lower-energy states have all been progressively filled. This process of gradually filling in the higher-energy states increases the pressure of the fermion gas, termed degeneracy pressure. A fermion gas in which all the energy states below a critical value (designated Fermi energy) are filled is called a fully degenerate, or zero-temperature, fermion gas. Such particles as electrons, protons, neutrons, and neutrinos are all fermions and obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. The electron gas in ordinary metals and in the interior of white dwarf stars constitute two examples of a degenerate electron gas.
white dwarf star
…stars are supported by the degeneracy pressure of the electron gas in their interior. Degeneracy pressure is the increased resistance exerted by electrons composing the gas, as a result of stellar contraction (see degenerate gas). The application of the so-called Fermi-Dirac statistics and of special…
fermion
Fermion, any member of a group of subatomic particles having odd half-integral angular momentum (spin 12, 32), named for the Fermi-Dirac statistics that describe its behaviour. Fermions include particles in the class of leptons (e.g., electrons, muons), baryons (e.g., neutrons, protons, lambda particles), and nuclei of odd mass number (e.g.,…
Fermi-Dirac statistics
Fermi-Dirac statistics, in quantum mechanics, one of two possible ways in which a system of indistinguishable particles can be distributed among a set of energy states: each of the available discrete states can be occupied by only one particle. This exclusiveness accounts for the electron structure of atoms, in which…