A New Very Cool White Dwarf Discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Abstract
Early data taken during commissioning of the SDSS have resulted in the discovery of a very cool white dwarf. It appears to have stronger collision induced absorption from molecular hydrogen than any other known white dwarf, suggesting it has a cooler temperature than any other. While its distance is presently unknown, it has a surprisingly small proper motion, making it unlikely to be a halo star. An analysis of white dwarf cooling times suggests that this object may be a low-mass star with a helium core. The SDSS imaging and spectroscopy also recovered LHS 3250, the coolest previously known white dwarf, indicating that the SDSS will be an effective tool for identifying these extreme objects.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0101021,
title = {A New Very Cool White Dwarf Discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey},
author = {H. C. Harris and B. M. S. Hansen and J. Liebert and D. E. Vanden Berk and S. F. Anderson and G. R. Knapp and X. Fan and B. Margon and J. A. Munn and R. C. Nichol and J. R. Pier and D. P. Schneider and J. A. Smith and D. E. Winget and D. G. York and J. E. Anderson and J. Brinkmann and S. Burles and B. Chen and A. J. Connolly and I. Csabai and J. A. Frieman and J. E. Gunn and G. S. Hennessy and R. B. Hindsley and Z. Ivezic and S. Kent and D. Q. Lamb and R. H. Lupton and H. J. Newberg and D. J. Schlegel and S. Smee and M. A. Strauss and A. R. Thakar and A. Uomoto and B. Yanny},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0101021},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
15 pages, including 5 figures. Accepted for Astrophysical Journal Letters