Significantly super-Chandrasekhar limiting mass white dwarfs and their   consequences
  Since 2012, we have initiated a new idea showing that the mass of highly magnetized or modified Einstein's gravity induced white dwarfs could be significantly super-Chandrasekhar with a different mass-limit. This discovery has several important consequences, including explanation of peculiar, over-luminous type Ia supernovae, soft gamma-ray repeaters and anomalous X-ray pulsars without invoking extraordinarily strong, yet unobserved, magnetic fields. It further argues for a possible second standard candle. Based on simpler calculations, these white dwarfs are also shown to be much less luminous than their standard counter-parts (of low magnetic fields). This discovery altogether initiates a new field of research. 
Banibrata Mukhopadhyay (IISc), Upasana Das (JILA, Colorado), A. R. Rao   (TIFR), Sathyawageeswar Subramanian (Cambridge), Mu...
astro-ph.SR astro-ph.HE