Helium White Dwarf Stars Bear New Quasiparticle

eldavojohn writes "Helium white dwarf stars are now theorized to produce a new kind of quasiparticle that would explain a known temperature anomaly between helium white dwarfs and vanilla white dwarfs (lumps of charcoal). Since helium can form a Bose-Einstein condensate and there are extra constraints inside such a dense object, a new quasiparticle emerges. Researchers' models claim it 'reduces the specific heat of the white dwarf core by two orders of magnitude compared to a crystalline core.' But even with that figured in, measurements of some nearby ancient helium white dwarfs show that they don't fit the specific temperature curve exactly. So, some questions remain, with the possible explanation that these stars undergo internal transition late in their age. The heavy reading is available on the prepublication site arXiv."

Headline

[rossdee]

White Dwarf Stars Bear
is that like
Red Dwarf Stars Cat

Is Chris Barrie (Rimmer) in it too?

Re:Anyone else get the feeling

[Anonymous Coward]

that when Physicist can't explain anything these days, they just invent a particle for it?

You're confusing physicists with Star Trek writers.