Quantum magnetic collapse

Abstract

We study the thermodynamics of degenerate electron and charged vector boson gases in very intense magnetic fields. In degenerate conditions of the electron gas, the pressure transverse to the magnetic field B may vanish, leading to a transverse collapse. For W bosons an instability arises because the magnetization diverges at the critical field B(c) = M(2)(W)/e. If the magnetic field is self-consistently maintained, the maximum value it can take is of the order of 2B(c)/3, but in any case the system becomes unstable and collapses.