Strongly magnetized electron degenerate gas: Highly super-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs

We consider a relativistic, degenerate, electron gas under the influence of a strong magnetic field, which describes magnetized white dwarfs. Landau quantization changes the density of states available to the electrons, thus modifying the underlying equation of state. We obtain the mass-radius relations for such white dwarfs and show that it is possible to have magnetized white dwarfs with a mass significantly greater than the Chandrasekhar limit in the range 2.3 - 2.6 M_sun. Recent observations of peculiar type Ia supernovae - SN 2006gz, SN 2007if, SN 2009dc, SN 2003fg - seem to suggest super-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs with masses up to 2.4 - 2.8 M_sun, as their most likely progenitors and interestingly our results lie within the observational limits.