scholarly journals Gaia white dwarfs within 40 pc – I. Spectroscopic observations of new candidates

2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
P-E Tremblay ◽  
M A Hollands ◽  
N P Gentile Fusillo ◽  
J McCleery ◽  
P Izquierdo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
White Dwarf ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Line Emission ◽  
Companion Paper ◽  
Metal Species ◽  
Balmer Line ◽  
Infrared Excess ◽  
Balmer Lines ◽  
Low Mass ◽  
Almost All

ABSTRACT We present a spectroscopic survey of 230 white dwarf candidates within 40 pc of the Sun from the William Herschel Telescope and Gran Telescopio Canarias. All candidates were selected from Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) and in almost all cases, had no prior spectroscopic classifications. We find a total of 191 confirmed white dwarfs and 39 main-sequence star contaminants. The majority of stellar remnants in the sample are relatively cool (〈Teff〉 = 6200 K), showing either hydrogen Balmer lines or a featureless spectrum, corresponding to 89 DA and 76 DC white dwarfs, respectively. We also recover two DBA white dwarfs and 9–10 magnetic remnants. We find two carbon-bearing DQ stars and 14 new metal-rich white dwarfs. This includes the possible detection of the first ultra-cool white dwarf with metal lines. We describe three DZ stars for which we find at least four different metal species, including one that is strongly Fe- and Ni-rich, indicative of the accretion of a planetesimal with core-Earth composition. We find one extremely massive (1.31 ± 0.01 M⊙) DA white dwarf showing weak Balmer lines, possibly indicating stellar magnetism. Another white dwarf shows strong Balmer line emission but no infrared excess, suggesting a low-mass sub-stellar companion. A high spectroscopic completeness (>99 per cent) has now been reached for Gaia DR2 sources within 40-pc sample, in the Northern hemisphere (δ > 0°) and located on the white dwarf cooling track in the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. A statistical study of the full northern sample is presented in a companion paper.

scholarly journals White Dwarf Stars

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 1760023
Author(s):  
S. O. Kepler ◽  
Alejandra Daniela Romero ◽  
Ingrid Pelisoli ◽  
Gustavo Ourique
Keyword(s):  
White Dwarf ◽  
Final Stage ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Sloan Digital Sky Survey ◽  
Dwarf Stars ◽  
Multiple Systems ◽  
White Dwarf Stars ◽  
Sky Survey ◽  
Data Release ◽  
Low Mass

White dwarf stars are the final stage of most stars, born single or in multiple systems. We discuss the identification, magnetic fields, and mass distribution for white dwarfs detected from spectra obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey up to Data Release 13 in 2016, which lead to the increase in the number of spectroscopically identified white dwarf stars from 5[Formula: see text]000 to 39[Formula: see text]000. This number includes only white dwarf stars with [Formula: see text], i.e., excluding the Extremely Low Mass white dwarfs, which are necessarily the byproduct of stellar interaction.

scholarly journals Asteroseismological Probing of the Thermal Evolution of White Dwarf Stars

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 643-645
Author(s):  
G. Fontaine ◽  
F. Wesemael
Keyword(s):  
White Dwarf ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Main Sequence ◽  
Thermal Evolution ◽  
Sequence Evolution ◽  
Helium Burning ◽  
Dwarf Stars ◽  
White Dwarf Stars ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
Low Mass

AbstractIt is generally believed that the immediate progenitors of most white dwarfs are nuclei of planetary nebulae, themselves the products of intermediate- and low-mass main sequence evolution. Stars that begin their lifes with masses less than about 7-8 M⊙ (i.e., the vast majority of them) are expected to become white dwarfs. Among those which have already had the time to become white dwarfs since the formation of the Galaxy, a majority have burnt hydrogen and helium in their interiors. Consequently, most of the mass of a typical white dwarf is contained in a core made of the products of helium burning, mostly carbon and oxygen. The exact proportions of C and 0 are unknown because of uncertainties in the nuclear rates of helium burning.

scholarly journals The Temperature and Cooling Age of t h e White-Dwarf Companion to the Millisecond Pulsar PSR B1855+09

2000 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 633-634
Author(s):  
Jon Bell ◽  
Marten van Kerkwijk ◽  
Vicky Kaspi ◽  
Shri Kulkarni
Keyword(s):  
White Dwarf ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Measured Temperature ◽  
Millisecond Pulsar ◽  
Nuclear Burning ◽  
Low Mass ◽  
Cooling Model ◽  
Age Discrepancy

AbstractWe report on Keck and HST observations of the binary millisecond pulsar PSR B1855+09. We detect its white-dwarf companion and measuremF555W= 25.90 ± 0.12 andmF814W= 24.19 ± 0.11 (Vega system). From the reddening-corrected color we infer a temperatureTeff= 4800 ± 800 K. The companion mass is known accurately from measurements of the Shapiro delay of the pulsar signal,. Given a cooling model, one can use the measured temperature to determine the cooling age. The main uncertainty in the cooling models for such low-mass white dwarfs is the amount of residual nuclear burning, which depends on the thickness of the hydrogen layer surrounding the helium core. For PSR B1855+09, such models lead to a cooling age of ∼10Gyr, which is twice the spin-down age of the pulsar. It may be that the pulsar does not brake (n=3.0) like a dipole rotatingin vacuo. For other pulsar companions, however, ages well over lOGyr are inferred, indicating that the problem may lie with the cooling models. There is no age discrepancy for models in which the white dwarfs are formed with thinner hydrogen layers (< 3 × 10−4M⊙). See van Kerkwijk et al. ApJ (submitted) for more details.

scholarly journals Searching for optical companions to four binary millisecond pulsars with the Gran Telescopio Canarias

2020 ◽  
Vol 492 (2) ◽  
pp. 3032-3040 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Yu Kirichenko ◽  
A V Karpova ◽  
D A Zyuzin ◽  
S V Zharikov ◽  
E A López ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
White Dwarf ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Optical Data ◽  
Pure Hydrogen ◽  
Millisecond Pulsars ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Photometric Observations ◽  
Low Mass

ABSTRACT We report on multiband photometric observations of four binary millisecond pulsars with the Gran Telescopio Canarias. The observations led to detection of binary companions to PSRs J1630+3734, J1741+1351, and J2042+0246 in the Sloan g′, r′, and i′ bands. Their magnitudes in the r′ band are ≈24.4, 24.4, and 24.0, respectively. We also set a 3σ upper limit on the brightness of the PSR J0557+1550 companion in the r′ band of ≈25.6 mag. Combining the optical data with the radio timing measurements and white dwarf cooling models, we show that the detected companions are cool low-mass white dwarfs with temperatures and ages in the respective ranges of (4–7) × 103 K and 2–5 Gyr. All the detected white dwarfs are found to likely have either pure hydrogen or mixed helium–hydrogen atmospheres.

scholarly journals Double dark matter vision: twice the number of compact-source lenses with narrow-line lensing and the WFC3 grism

2019 ◽  
Vol 492 (4) ◽  
pp. 5314-5335 ◽  
Author(s):  
A M Nierenberg ◽  
D Gilman ◽  
T Treu ◽  
G Brammer ◽  
S Birrer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Gravitational Lensing ◽  
Line Emission ◽  
Companion Paper ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Gravitational Lenses ◽  
Narrow Line ◽  
Entire Sample ◽  
Compact Source ◽  
Low Mass

ABSTRACT The magnifications of compact-source lenses are extremely sensitive to the presence of low-mass dark matter haloes along the entire sightline from the source to the observer. Traditionally, the study of dark matter structure in compact-source strong gravitational lenses has been limited to radio-loud systems, as the radio emission is extended and thus unaffected by microlensing which can mimic the signal of dark matter structure. An alternate approach is to measure quasar nuclear-narrow-line emission, which is free from microlensing and present in virtually all quasar lenses. In this paper, we double the number of systems which can be used for gravitational lensing analyses by presenting measurements of narrow-line emission from a sample of eight quadruply imaged quasar lens systems, WGD J0405−3308, HS 0810+2554, RX J0911+0551, SDSS J1330+1810, PS J1606−2333, WFI 2026−4536, WFI 2033−4723, and WGD J2038−4008. We describe our updated grism spectral modelling pipeline, which we use to measure narrow-line fluxes with uncertainties of 2–10 per cent, presented here. We fit the lensed image positions with smooth mass models and demonstrate that these models fail to produce the observed distribution of image fluxes over the entire sample of lenses. Furthermore, typical deviations are larger than those expected from macromodel uncertainties. This discrepancy indicates the presence of perturbations caused by small-scale dark matter structure. The interpretation of this result in terms of dark matter models is presented in a companion paper.

scholarly journals Single magnetic white dwarfs with Balmer emission lines: a small class with consistent physical characteristics as possible signposts for close-in planetary companions

2020 ◽  
Vol 499 (2) ◽  
pp. 2564-2574
Author(s):  
Boris T Gänsicke ◽  
Pablo Rodríguez-Gil ◽  
Nicola P Gentile Fusillo ◽  
Keith Inight ◽  
Matthias R Schreiber ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
White Dwarf ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Late Onset ◽  
Spectral Energy Distribution ◽  
Giant Planet ◽  
Line Emission ◽  
Emission Lines ◽  
Spectral Energy ◽  
Common Mechanism ◽  
Small Class

ABSTRACT We report the identification of SDSS J121929.45+471522.8 as the third apparently isolated magnetic (B ≃ 18.5 ± 1.0 MG) white dwarf exhibiting Zeeman-split Balmer emission lines. The star shows coherent variability at optical wavelengths with an amplitude of ≃0.03 mag and a period of 15.26 h, which we interpret as the spin period of the white dwarf. Modelling the spectral energy distribution and Gaia parallax, we derive a white dwarf temperature of 7500 ± 148 K, a mass of 0.649 ± 0.022 M⊙, and a cooling age of 1.5 ± 0.1 Gyr, as well as an upper limit on the temperature of a sub-stellar or giant planet companion of ≃250 K. The physical properties of this white dwarf match very closely those of the other two magnetic white dwarfs showing Balmer emission lines: GD356 and SDSS J125230.93−023417.7. We argue that, considering the growing evidence for planets and planetesimals on close orbits around white dwarfs, the unipolar inductor model provides a plausible scenario to explain the characteristics of this small class of stars. The tight clustering of the three stars in cooling age suggests a common mechanism switching the unipolar inductor on and off. Whereas Lorentz drift naturally limits the lifetime of the inductor phase, the relatively late onset of the line emission along the white dwarf cooling sequence remains unexplained.

scholarly journals The evolution of helium white dwarfs: Applications for millisecond pulsars

2000 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 635-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Driebe ◽  
T. Blöcker ◽  
D. Schönberner
Keyword(s):  
Mass Loss ◽  
White Dwarf ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Binary Systems ◽  
Mass Star ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
Millisecond Pulsar ◽  
Millisecond Pulsars ◽  
Low Mass ◽  
Red Giant

Low-mass white dwarfs with helium cores (He-WDs) are known to result from mass loss and/or exchange events in binary systems where the donor is a low mass star evolving along the red giant branch (RGB). Therefore, He-WDs are common components in binary systems with either two white dwarfs or with a white dwarf and a millisecond pulsar (MSP). If the cooling behaviour of He-WDs is known from theoretical studies (see Driebe et al. 1998, and references therein) the ages of MSP systems can be calculated independently of the pulsar properties provided the He-WD mass is known from spectroscopy.

scholarly journals Hidden in Plain Sight: A double-lined White Dwarf Binary 26 pc away and a Distant Cousin

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukremin Kilic ◽  
A Bédard ◽  
P Bergeron
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Orbital Period ◽  
White Dwarf ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Model Atmosphere ◽  
High Resolution Spectroscopy ◽  
Low Mass ◽  
Orbital Periods ◽  
Velocity Changes ◽  
Cool White Dwarfs

Abstract We present high-resolution spectroscopy of two nearby white dwarfs with inconsistent spectroscopic and parallax distances. The first one, PG 1632+177, is a 13th magnitude white dwarf only 25.6 pc away. Previous spectroscopic observations failed to detect any radial velocity changes in this star. Here, we show that PG 1632+177 is a 2.05 d period double-lined spectroscopic binary (SB2) containing a low-mass He-core white dwarf with a more-massive, likely CO-core white dwarf companion. After L 870-2, PG 1632+177 becomes the second closest SB2 white dwarf currently known. Our second target, WD 1534+503, is also an SB2 system with an orbital period of 0.71 d. For each system, we constrain the atmospheric parameters of both components through a composite model-atmosphere analysis. We also present a new set of NLTE synthetic spectra appropriate for modeling high-resolution observations of cool white dwarfs, and show that NLTE effects in the core of the Hα line increase with decreasing effective temperature. We discuss the orbital period and mass distribution of SB2 and eclipsing double white dwarfs with orbital constraints, and demonstrate that the observed population is consistent with the predicted period distribution from the binary population synthesis models. The latter predict more massive CO + CO white dwarf binaries at short (<1 d) periods, as well as binaries with several day orbital periods; such systems are still waiting to be discovered in large numbers.

scholarly journals Stellar chronology with white dwarfs in wide binaries

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S258) ◽  
pp. 307-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Catalán ◽  
A. Garcés ◽  
I. Ribas ◽  
J. Isern ◽  
E. García-Berro
Keyword(s):  
White Dwarf ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Mass Star ◽  
Cooling Process ◽  
Stellar Ages ◽  
Low Mass ◽  
The Moment

AbstractWhite dwarfs are the evolutionary end product of stars with low and intermediate masses. The evolution of white dwarfs can be understood as a cooling process, which is relatively well known at the moment. For this reason, wide binaries containing white dwarfs are a powerful tool to constrain stellar ages. We have studied several wide binaries containing white dwarfs with two different purposes: when the age of the companion of the white dwarf can be determined with accuracy, we use the binary to improve the knowledge about the white dwarf member. On the contrary, if the companion is a low-mass star with no age indicator available, the white dwarf member itself is used to calibrate the age of the system. In this contribution we present some results using both methodologies to constrain the ages of wide binaries.

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