I do not know much about x-ray physics or degenerate matter, but I have the intuitive feeling that the high electron density and what must be some crazy band structures in electron degenerate matter might give rise to a high x-ray reflectivity. So as a purely hypothetical question that suddenly struck me; does anyone who does know something about these topics think that you could bounce x-rays of white dwarfs?
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Closely related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/89330/ and http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/57632/ and http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/22722/. Surely we have a good answer somewhere... – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Mar 09 '14 at 18:43
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I couldn't find an answer there, but thanks for pointing them out. All those questions concern neutron stars/neutron degenerate matter, and the answers more or less assume no electrons or simply says that there will be a surface of "normal matter". I'm wondering about the (high energy) optical effects of the weird electronic structure of electron degenerate matter. – Knut Mar 09 '14 at 18:56