Absolute stability limit for relativistic charged spheres

• DOI: 10.1007/s10714-007-0539-7
• Publication Date: 2007-11-19T02:20:12Z
• Authors: Alessandro Giuliani; Tony Rothman
• Keywords: Charge density; Mass distribution

We find an exact solution for the stability limit of relativistic charged spheres for the case of constant gravitational mass density and constant charge density. We argue that this provides an absolute stability limit for any relativistic charged sphere in which the gravitational mass density decreases with radius and the charge density increases with radius. We then provide a cruder absolute stability limit that applies to any charged sphere with a spherically symmetric mass and charge distribution. We give numerical results for all cases. In addition, we discuss the example of a neutral sphere surrounded by a thin, charged shell.<br/>25 pages, 1 figure 1 June 07: Replaced with added citations to prior work along same lines<br/>