scholarly journals A TESS Detection of Candidate Double White Dwarf Binary with a 3.54 days Period

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 269
Author(s):  
Natalia Garza Navarro ◽  
David J. Wilson

Abstract We report the recharacterization of TIC 471013547 as an eclipsing white dwarf binary using data obtained with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Eclipses from both components are detected, and we find a period of 3.541056 ± 0.000185 days with an ephemeris of TJD = 2458441.434 ± 0.000209 days. Its shared features with other double white dwarf eclipsing binaries and its lack of infrared excess indicate that the system likely consists of two white dwarfs.

2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
P-E Tremblay ◽  
M A Hollands ◽  
N P Gentile Fusillo ◽  
J McCleery ◽  
P Izquierdo ◽  
...  

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.


Author(s):  
A Rebassa-Mansergas ◽  
E Solano ◽  
S Xu(#x8BB8;#x5072;#x827A;) ◽  
C Rodrigo ◽  
F M Jiménez-Esteban ◽  
...  

Abstract We analyse the 100 pc Gaia white dwarf volume-limited sample by means of VOSA (Virtual Observatory SED Analyser) with the aim of identifying candidates for displaying infrared excesses. Our search focuses on the study of the spectral energy distribution (SED) of 3,733 white dwarfs with reliable infrared photometry and GBP − GRP colours below 0.8 mag, a sample which seems to be nearly representative of the overall white dwarf population. Our search results in 77 selected candidates, 52 of which are new identifications. For each target we apply a two-component SED fitting implemented in VOSA to derive the effective temperatures of both the white dwarf and the object causing the excess. We calculate a fraction of infrared-excess white dwarfs due to the presence of a circumstellar disk of 1.6±0.2%, a value which increases to 2.6±0.3% if we take into account incompleteness issues. Our results are in agreement with the drop in the percentage of infrared excess detections for cool (<8,000 K) and hot (>20,000 K) white dwarfs obtained in previous analyses. The fraction of white dwarfs with brown dwarf companions we derive is ≃0.1–0.2%.


2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-24
Author(s):  
M A Hogg ◽  
S L Casewell ◽  
G A Wynn ◽  
E S Longstaff ◽  
I P Braker ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We present the results of a study to discover prospective new white dwarf-L dwarf binaries as identified by their near-infrared excesses in the UKIDSS catalogue. We obtained optical spectra to validate the white dwarf nature for 22 of the candidate primary stars, confirming ten as white dwarfs and determining their effective temperatures and gravities. For all 10 white dwarfs, we determined that the near-infrared excess was indeed indicative of a cool companion. Six of these are suggestive of late M dwarf companions, and three are candidate L dwarf companions, with one straddling the M−L boundary. We also present near-infrared spectra of eight additional candidate white dwarf-ultracool dwarf binaries, where the white dwarf primary had been previously confirmed. These spectra indicate one candidate at the M−L boundary, three potential L dwarf companions, and one suspected M dwarf, which showed photometric variability on a ∼6 h period, suggesting the system may be close. Radial velocity follow-up is required to confirm whether these systems are close, or widely separated.


Author(s):  
E González Egea ◽  
R Raddi ◽  
D Koester ◽  
L K Rogers ◽  
F Marocco ◽  
...  

Abstract Spectroscopic observations of white dwarfs reveal that many of them are polluted by exoplanetary material, whose bulk composition can be uniquely probed this way. We present a spectroscopic and photometric analysis of the DA white dwarf WDJ181417.84−735459.83, an object originally identified to have a strong infrared excess in the 2MASS and WISE catalogues that we confirmed to be intrinsic to the white dwarf, and likely corresponding to the emission of a dusty disc around the star. The finding of Ca, Fe and Mg absorption lines in two X-SHOOTER spectra of the white dwarf, taken 8 years apart, is further evidence of accretion from a dusty disc. We do not report variability in the absorption lines between these two spectra. Fitting a blackbody model to the infrared excess gives a temperature of 910±50 K. We have estimated a total accretion flux from the spectroscopic metal lines of $|\dot{\rm M}| = 1.784 \times 10^{9}\,$g s−1.


Author(s):  
John H D Harrison ◽  
Amy Bonsor ◽  
Mihkel Kama ◽  
Andrew M Buchan ◽  
Simon Blouin ◽  
...  

Abstract White dwarfs that have accreted planetary bodies are a powerful probe of the bulk composition of exoplanetary material. In this paper, we present a Bayesian model to explain the abundances observed in the atmospheres of 202 DZ white dwarfs by considering the heating, geochemical differentiation, and collisional processes experienced by the planetary bodies accreted, as well as gravitational sinking. The majority (&gt;60%) of systems are consistent with the accretion of primitive material. We attribute the small spread in refractory abundances observed to a similar spread in the initial planet-forming material, as seen in the compositions of nearby stars. A range in Na abundances in the pollutant material is attributed to a range in formation temperatures from below 1,000 K to higher than 1,400 K, suggesting that pollutant material arrives in white dwarf atmospheres from a variety of radial locations. We also find that Solar System-like differentiation is common place in exo-planetary systems. Extreme siderophile (Fe, Ni or Cr) abundances in 8 systems require the accretion of a core-rich fragment of a larger differentiated body to at least a 3σ significance, whilst one system shows evidence that it accreted a crust-rich fragment. In systems where the abundances suggest that accretion has finished (13/202), the total mass accreted can be calculated. The 13 systems are estimated to have accreted masses ranging from the mass of the Moon to half that of Vesta. Our analysis suggests that accretion continues for 11Myrs on average.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Curtin ◽  
Jack Setford

Abstract Dark matter could have a dissipative asymmetric subcomponent in the form of atomic dark matter (aDM). This arises in many scenarios of dark complexity, and is a prediction of neutral naturalness, such as the Mirror Twin Higgs model. We show for the first time how White Dwarf cooling provides strong bounds on aDM. In the presence of a small kinetic mixing between the dark and SM photon, stars are expected to accumulate atomic dark matter in their cores, which then radiates away energy in the form of dark photons. In the case of white dwarfs, this energy loss can have a detectable impact on their cooling rate. We use measurements of the white dwarf luminosity function to tightly constrain the kinetic mixing parameter between the dark and visible photons, for DM masses in the range 10−5–105 GeV, down to values of ϵ ∼ 10−12. Using this method we can constrain scenarios in which aDM constitutes fractions as small as 10−3 of the total dark matter density. Our methods are highly complementary to other methods of probing aDM, especially in scenarios where the aDM is arranged in a dark disk, which can make direct detection extremely difficult but actually slightly enhances our cooling constraints.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (4) ◽  
pp. 5397-5408
Author(s):  
Mukremin Kilic ◽  
P Bergeron ◽  
Simon Blouin ◽  
A Bédard

ABSTRACT We present an analysis of the most massive white dwarf candidates in the Montreal White Dwarf Database 100 pc sample. We identify 25 objects that would be more massive than $1.3\, {\rm M}_{\odot }$ if they had pure H atmospheres and CO cores, including two outliers with unusually high photometric mass estimates near the Chandrasekhar limit. We provide follow-up spectroscopy of these two white dwarfs and show that they are indeed significantly below this limit. We expand our model calculations for CO core white dwarfs up to M = 1.334 M⊙, which corresponds to the high-density limit of our equation-of-state tables, ρ = 109 g cm−3. We find many objects close to this maximum mass of our CO core models. A significant fraction of ultramassive white dwarfs are predicted to form through binary mergers. Merger populations can reveal themselves through their kinematics, magnetism, or rapid rotation rates. We identify four outliers in transverse velocity, four likely magnetic white dwarfs (one of which is also an outlier in transverse velocity), and one with rapid rotation, indicating that at least 8 of the 25 ultramassive white dwarfs in our sample are likely merger products.


1993 ◽  
Vol 139 ◽  
pp. 120-120
Author(s):  
G. Fontaine ◽  
P. Brassard ◽  
P. Bergeron ◽  
F. Wesemael

Over the last several years, we have developed a comprehensive program aimed at better understanding the properties of pulsating DA white dwarfs (or ZZ Ceti stars). These stars are nonradial pulsators of the g-type, and their study can lead to inferences about their internal structure. For instance, the period spectrum of a white dwarf is most sensitive to its vertical chemical stratification, and one of the major goals of white dwarf seismology is to determine the thickness of the hydrogen layer that sits on top of a star. This can be done, in principle, by comparing in detail theoretical period spectra with the periods of the observed excited modes. Likewise, because the cooling rate of a white dwarf is very sensitive to the specific heat of its core material (and hence to its composition), it is possible to infer the core composition through measurements and interpretations of rates of period change in a pulsator.


1971 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 130-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. H. Böhm ◽  
J. Cassinelli

Outer convection zones of white dwarfs in the range 5800 K ≤ Teff ≤ 30000 K have been studied assuming that they have the same chemical composition as determined by Weidemann (1960) for van Maanen 2. Convection is important in all these stars. In white dwarfs Teff < 8000 K the adiabatic temperature gradient is strongly influenced by the pressure ionization of H, HeI and HeII which occurs within the convection zone. Partial degeneracy is also important.Convective velocities are very small for cool white dwarfs but they reach considerable values for hotter objects. For a white dwarf of Teff = 30000 K a velocity of 6.05 km/sec and an acoustic flux (generated by the turbulent convection) of 1.5 × 1011 erg cm−2 sec−1 is reached. The formation of white dwarf coronae is briefly discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 1760023
Author(s):  
S. O. Kepler ◽  
Alejandra Daniela Romero ◽  
Ingrid Pelisoli ◽  
Gustavo Ourique

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.


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