Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2018/iii/paper-317/3/iv/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 317 3 iv Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Take the gas pressure to vanish at the exterior boundary and the atmosphere to be thin enough that surface gravity of a star is constant. With constant electron-scattering opacity, negligible radiative acceleration, and hydrostatic equilibrium in optical depth,If the radiative force is retained, for gas pressure, and the same result holds with the constant positive effective gravity . A nonzero exterior gas pressure instead gives . Total gas-plus-radiation pressure has the nonzero radiative surface term from part (ii), so the advertised exact formula presumes gas pressure with zero exterior gas pressure.
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