Eddington luminosity , także: Eddington limit

Thus twice the usual Eddington luminosity would be needed to drive off an atmosphere of pure helium.

Since most massive stars have luminosities far below the Eddington luminosity, their winds are mostly driven by the less intense line absorption.

The maximum luminosity of a source in hydrostatic equilibrium is the Eddington luminosity.

When a star exceeds the Eddington luminosity, it will initiate a very intense radiation-driven stellar wind from its outer layers.

The exact value of the Eddington luminosity depends on the chemical composition of the gas layer and the spectral energy distribution of the emission.

One is that ellipticals generally contain the most massive black holes, and so are capable of powering the most luminous active galaxies (see Eddington luminosity).

The trigger mechanism of these outbursts remains unexplained, though it is thought to be caused by violating the classical Eddington luminosity limit, initiating severe mass loss.

Alternatively, the partner star may undergo stellar mass loss by exceeding its Eddington luminosity, and some of this material may become gravitationally attracted to the neutron star.

The main interest in ULXs stems from the fact that their luminosity exceeds the Eddington luminosity of neutron stars and even stellar black holes.

The fact that ULXs have Eddington luminosities larger than that of stellar mass objects implies that they are different from normal X-ray binaries.

During the Normal Branch and Flaring Branch, the star was thought to approach its Eddington luminosity at which the force of the radiation could repel the accreting gas.

Gamma-ray bursts, novae and supernovae are examples of systems exceeding their Eddington luminosity by a large factor for very short times, resulting in short and highly intensive mass loss rates.

Therefore, the X-ray flux at the peak of the burst should correspond to Eddington luminosity, which can be calculated once the mass of the neutron star is known (1.5 solar masses is a commonly used assumption).

Accretion can potentially give very efficient conversion of potential and kinetic energy to radiation, and a massive black hole has a high Eddington luminosity, and as a result, it can provide the observed high persistent luminosity.

The reason for this limit is not precisely known, but it is partially due to the Eddington luminosity which defines the maximum amount of luminosity that can pass through the atmosphere of a star without ejecting the gases into space.

The Eddington luminosity, also referred to as the Eddington limit, is the maximum luminosity a body (such as a star) can achieve when there is balance between the force of radiation acting outward and the gravitational force acting inward.

His most known contribution to the field of astrophysics was to demonstrate that the Eddington luminosity is not a strict limit, namely, that astrophysical objects can be brighter than the Eddington luminosity without blowing themselves apart.

Astronomers who believed quasars were not at cosmological distances argued that the Eddington luminosity set limits on how distant the quasars could be since the energy output required to explain the apparent brightness of cosmologically-distant quasars was far too high to be explainable by nuclear fusion alone.