By comparing two age indicators of high-mass white dwarfs derived from Gaia data, two discoveries have been made recently: one is the existence of a cooling anomaly that produces the Q branch structure on the Hertzsprung--Russell diagram, the other is the existence of double-white-dwarf merger products. The former poses a challenge for white dwarf cooling models, and the latter has implications on binary evolution and type-Ia supernovae.
@article{arxiv.2001.04483,
title = {Two delays in white dwarf evolution revealed by Gaia},
author = {Sihao Cheng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.04483},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures; contributed to the Proceedings of IAU Symposium No. 357, "White Dwarfs as Probes of Fundamental Physics and Tracers of Planetary, Stellar, and Galactic Evolution," held in Hilo, Hawaii, 21-25 October 2019