Related papers: An ultra-massive fast-spinning white dwarf in a pe…
Pulsars in close binary orbit around another neutron star or a massive white dwarf make ideal laboratories for testing the predictions of gravitational radiation and self-gravitational effects. We report new timing measurements of the…
We report on the discovery of the shortest period binary comprising a hot subdwarf star (CD-30 11223, GALEX J1411-3053) and a massive unseen companion. Photometric data from the All Sky Automated Survey show ellipsoidal variations of the…
We present results based on observations of SN 2015H which belongs to the small group of objects similar to SN 2002cx, otherwise known as type Iax supernovae. The availability of deep pre-explosion imaging allowed us to place tight…
The millisecond pulsar in a triple system (PSR J0337+1715, recently discovered by Ransom et al.) is an unusual neutron star with two orbiting white dwarfs. The existence of such a system in the Galactic field poses new challenges to stellar…
We have discovered two recycled pulsars in relativistic orbits as part of the first high-frequency survey of intermediate Galactic latitudes. PSR J1157-5112 is a 44 ms pulsar and the first recycled pulsar with an ultra-massive (M > 1.14 Mo)…
Limits on the companions of white dwarfs in the single degenerate scenario for the origin of Type Ia supernovae (SNIa) have gotten increasingly tight. The only type of non-degenerate stars that survive the limits on the companions of SNIa…
We summarize constraints on neutron star masses from ongoing timing observations of pulsar-white dwarf binaries at Arecibo. The trend is toward pulsar masses larger than the canonical value of 1.35 solar masses.
In the course of our search for double degenerate (DD) binaries as potential progenitors of type Ia supernovae with the UVES spectrograph at the ESO VLT (ESO SN Ia Progenitor surveY - SPY) we discovered that the white dwarf HE 1414-0848 is…
Recent astrophysics observation reveals the existence of some super luminous type Ia supernovae. One natural explanation of such a peculiar phenomenon is to require the progenitor of such a supernova to be a highly super-Chandrasekhar mass…
Over the past couple of decades, researchers have predicted more than a dozen super-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs from the detections of over-luminous type Ia supernovae. It turns out that magnetic fields and rotation can explain such massive…
We investigate the Chandrasekhar mass limit for white dwarfs in various models of $f(R)$ gravity. Two equations of state for stellar matter are used: simple relativistic polytropic equation with polytropic index $n=3$ and the realistic…
SDSS 1257+5428 is a white dwarf in a close orbit with a companion that has been suggested to be a neutron star. If so, it hosts the closest known neutron star, and its existence implies a great abundance of similar systems and a rate of…
In the presence of a strong magnetic field a stellar equilibrium configuration, aided by the Lorentz force, can support a larger mass than a non-magnetic one. This has been considered a possible explanation of the super-Chandrasekhar mass…
We report the discovery of a nearby massive white dwarf with He-H atmosphere. The white dwarf is located at a distance of $74.5\pm0.9$ pc. Its radius, mass, effective temperature, H/He ratio and age are $R=2500\pm100$ km, $M=1.33\pm0.01$…
Low-mass white dwarfs can either be produced in low-mass X-ray binaries by stable mass transfer to a neutron star, or in a common-envelope phase with a heavier white dwarf companion. We have searched 8 low-mass white dwarf candidates…
We have obtained I, J, H and K band light curves of the recurrent nova T CrB. We find that we can only fit the $J$ band light curve with a Roche-lobe filling secondary star and a dark spot of radius 11-26 derees (90 per cent confidence)…
We compute static equilibria of white dwarf stars containing strong poloidal magnetic field, and present the modification of white dwarf mass-radius relation caused by the magnetic field. We find that a maximum white dwarf mass of about…
Using patterns in the oscillation frequencies of a white dwarf observed by K2, we have measured the fastest rotation rate, 1.13(02) hr, of any isolated pulsating white dwarf known to date. Balmer-line fits to follow-up spectroscopy from the…
Splaver and coworkers have measured the masses of the white dwarf and the neutron star components of the PSR J1713+0747 binary system pair by Shapiro Delay. We attempt to find the original configuration of this system performing a set of…
Recent observations of several peculiar over- and under-luminous type Ia supernovae infer indirect evidence for the violation of the Chandrasekhar mass-limit by suggesting the existence of super- and sub-Chandrasekhar limiting mass white…