A uniform-density perfect-gas sphere supported by decreasing pressure has buoyancy frequency squared in the interior. Its specific entropy decreases outward and adiabatic displacements are buoyantly unstable. For the nonradial polynomial family, the product of the two normalized squared mode frequencies is , displaying one growing branch even when radial compression modes are stable.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 62 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For an ideal gas with constant adiabatic index , let and be specific heat capacities and . The ideal gas law and the internal energy of an ideal gas give and specific internal energy . Since , the internal energy per unit volume is . Consequently a star with spherical symmetry hasThe radial integral requires the volume measure : the first printed expression omits this factor if its differential is read literally as . The mass-coordinate expression confirms the required volume interpretation.
Define the enclosed mass , total mass and dimensionless shell label . Mass conservation gives , so the change of variables givesHere labels a fixed material shell rather than its radial position. In a mass-preserving stellar homology, with . Both a shell's radius and thickness gain a factor , so its volume gains and its mass density becomes . An adiabatic process keeps fixed separately in each shell, even if that constant differs between shells. Thus and . Integration at fixed mass labels provesThe spherical shell theorem gives the Newtonian gravitational potential energy by assembling shells against the mass already inside them:Every radius gains the same factor , while and remain fixed. HenceThis is the homologous adiabatic stellar stability test. The derivative with respect to the physical stellar radius is . Stationarity at therefore requires , orAfter imposing this equilibrium relation, andSince , a strict energy minimum under this homologous displacement requiresFor , contraction sends to , expansion sends it to from below, and is the unique minimum, with . For , contraction sends to , expansion sends it to from above, and is the unique maximum. When , the equilibrium relation makes for every : the scale direction is marginal, not strictly stable. The plotted curves display these three possibilities. This checks homologous radial stability; stability against every stellar displacement needs a fuller perturbation analysis.
Stellar energy under homologous adiabatic expansion: stable minimum, unstable maximum and marginal scaling
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