Related papers: Hot DQ White Dwarfs: Something Different
The New Luyten Two-Tenths catalog contains a large number of high-proper motion white dwarf candidates that remain to be spectroscopically confirmed. We present new spectroscopic observations as well as SDSS archival spectra of 49 white…
With the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph onboard the Hubble Space Telescope, we have detected molecular hydrogen in the atmospheres of three white dwarfs with effective temperatures below 14,000 K, G29-38, GD 133 and GD 31. This discovery…
White dwarfs, the extremely dense remnants left behind by most stars after their death, are characterised by a mass comparable to that of the Sun compressed into the size of an Earth-like planet. In the resulting strong gravity, heavy…
We present 4.5$\mu$m and 8$\mu$m photometric observations of 18 cool white dwarfs obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope. Our observations demonstrate that four white dwarfs with T_eff< 6000 K show slightly depressed mid-infrared fluxes…
We present an analysis of spectroscopic and photometric data for cool DQ white dwarfs based on improved model atmosphere calculations. In particular, we revise the atmospheric parameters of the trigonometric parallax sample of Bergeron et…
We investigate the evolution of cooling helium atmosphere white dwarfs using a full evolutionary code, specifically developed for following the effects of element diffusion and gravitational settling on white dwarf cooling. The major…
The surface gravities of cool (Teff < 13,000 K) hydrogen-atmosphere DA white dwarfs, determined from spectroscopic analyses, are found to be significantly higher than the canonical value of log g ~ 8 expected for these stars. It was…
White dwarf stars are traditionally found to have surface compositions made primarily of hydrogen or helium. However, a new family has recently been uncovered, the so-called Hot DQ white dwarfs, which have surface compositions dominated by…
The convective dredge-up of carbon from the interiors of hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs has long been invoked to explain the presence of carbon absorption features in the spectra of cool DQ stars ($T_{\rm eff} < 10{,}000\,{\rm K}$). It has…
We present new ultraviolet spectra of the peculiar white dwarf (WD) H1504+65, obtained with COS on HST. H1504+65 is the hottest known WD (Teff= 200,000 K) and has an atmosphere mainly composed of C and O, augmented with high amounts of Ne…
Cool white dwarfs with Teff < 6000 K are the remnants of the oldest stars that existed in our Galaxy. Their atmospheres, when properly characterized, can provide valuable information on white dwarf evolution and ultimately star formation…
The recent plethora of sky surveys, especially the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, have discovered many low-mass (M < 0.45 Msun) white dwarfs that should have cores made of nearly pure helium. These WDs come in two varieties; those with masses…
White dwarfs represent the endpoint of stellar evolution for stars with initial masses between approximately 0.07 msun and 8-10 msun, where msun is the mass of the Sun (more massive stars end their life as either black holes or neutron…
In a search for new white dwarfs in DR12 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Kepler et al. (2016) found atmospheric parameters for thousands of objects with effective temperatures below 20,000 K and surface gravities between 5.5 < log(g) <…
We present the discovery of photometric variability in the DQ white dwarf SDSS J103655.39+652252.2 (SDSS J1036+6522). Time-series photometry reveals a coherent monoperiodic modulation at a period of 1115.64751(67) s with an amplitude of…
We present optical spectroscopy and near-infrared photometry of 57 faint ($g= 19-22$) high proper motion white dwarfs identified through repeat imaging of $\approx3100$ square degrees of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey footprint by Munn et al.…
We have discovered periodic variations in the light curves of two hot DQ stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, SDSS J220029.08-074121.5 and SDSS J234843.30-094245.3. These are the second and third variables detected among the hot DQs and…
We discovered two bright DO-type white dwarfs, GALEXJ053628.3+544854 (J0536+5448) and GALEX231128.0+292935(J2311+2929), which rank among the eight brightest DO-type white dwarfs known. Our non-LTE model atmosphere analysis reveals effective…
Following our recent discovery of a new magnetic DQ white dwarf (WD) with CH molecular features, we report the results for the rest of the DQ WDs from our survey. We use high signal-to-noise spectropolarimetric data to search for magnetic…
We report the identification of the double degenerate system NLTT 16249 that comprises a normal, hydrogen-rich (DA) white dwarf and a peculiar, carbon-polluted white dwarf (DQ) showing photospheric traces of nitrogen. We disentangled the…