Can we treat the center of the Sun as a classical ideal gas? Let's find out....

 

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Can we treat the center of the Sun as a classical ideal gas? Let's find out. (a) Consider a gas at temperature T composed of particles of mass m. Use dimen- sional analysis to estimate the typical speed of the particles. (b) As we will see, the Sun's central temperature is roughly T~2 107 K. This is hot enough to ionize atoms, so electrons and nuclei move independently. What is the typical speed of electrons? Of hydrogen nuclei? Are they relativistic? (c) At roughly what temperature does an electron gas become relativistic (v. ~ c)? Can we treat the center of the Sun as a classical ideal gas? Let's find out. (a) Consider a gas at temperature T composed of particles of mass m. Use dimen- sional analysis to estimate the typical speed of the particles. (b) As we will see, the Sun's central temperature is roughly T~2 107 K. This is hot enough to ionize atoms, so electrons and nuclei move independently. What is the typical speed of electrons? Of hydrogen nuclei? Are they relativistic? (c) At roughly what temperature does an electron gas become relativistic (v. ~ c)?

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Thank you for summarizing the solution based on dimension analysis Lets now calculate the typical sp... View the full answer