Doing Physics in the Cores of Globular Star Clusters

质量大约是太阳八倍的恒星以白色矮星（WD）的形式结束了它们的生命。这些恒星已经完成了它们的核演化，将它们的氢核心转化为氦，然后转化为碳和氧。然后，星星收缩，直到它的电子压力（量子力学电子简并压力）变得足够高，使星星在引力（想要收缩它）和压力（想要膨胀它）之间达到平衡。这个过程的终点是一颗质量约为太阳一半、半径约为地球的星星。WD此时已经耗尽了其潜在的核燃料来源，因此它只是将其储存的热能辐射到太空中，并随着时间的推移缓慢冷却- WDS是很好的时钟。这提供了一个物理实验室，其条件在地球上无法复制;温度约为1亿度，密度为水的100万倍，精确的时钟靴子。有了这个几乎独一无二的实验室，就有可能进行奇异的物理实验。

Stars up to about eight times the mass of our Sun end their lives as white dwarf stars (WDs). These stars have completed their nuclear evolution, converting their core of hydrogen into helium and then into carbon and oxygen. The star then contracts until the pressure of its electrons (the quantum mechanical electron degeneracy pressure) becomes high enough for the star to reach a balance between gravity (that wants to contract it) and pressure (that wants to expand it). The end point of this process is a star about half the mass of the Sun and about the radius of the Earth. The WD has depleted its potential source of nuclear fuel by this time, so it simply radiates its stored thermal energy out into space and cools slowly and predictably with time - WDS are good clocks. This provides a physical laboratory with conditions that cannot be reproduced on Earth; temperature about 100 million degrees, density of order of 1 million times that of water and a precise clock to boot. With this almost unique laboratory, it is possible to carry out exotic physical experiments.