Related papers: Understanding the Oldest White Dwarfs: Atmospheres…
White Dwarfs (WDs) are the final evolutionary product of the vast majority of stars in the Universe. They are electron-degenerate structures characterized by no stable thermonuclear activity, and their evolution is generally described as a…
A photometric and spectroscopic analysis of 152 cool white dwarf stars is presented. The discovery of 7 new DA white dwarfs, 2 new DQ white dwarfs, 1 new magnetic white dwarf, and 3 weak magnetic white dwarf candidates, is reported, as well…
We present full evolutionary calculations appropriate for the study of hydrogen-rich DA white dwarfs. This is done by evolving white dwarf progenitors from the zero age main sequence, through the core hydrogen burning phase, the helium…
We present preliminary results of an experimental study exploring helium at photospheric conditions of white dwarf stars. These data were collected at Sandia National Laboratories' Z-machine, the largest x-ray source on earth. Our helium…
White dwarfs with metal-polluted atmospheres have been studied widely in the context of the accretion of rocky debris from evolved planetary systems. One open question is the geometry of accretion and how material arrives and mixes in the…
The evolution of white dwarfs is essentially a gravothermal process of cooling in which the basic ingredients for predicting their evolution are well identified, although not always well understood. There are two independent ways to test…
Observations of galactic white dwarfs with Gaia have allowed for unprecedented modeling of white dwarf cooling, resolving core crystallization and sedimentary heating from neutron rich nuclei. These cooling sequences are sensitive to the…
Taking advantage of the Gaia Data Release 2, recent studies have revisited the evolution of carbon-polluted white dwarfs (DQs) across a large range of effective temperatures. These analyses have clearly confirmed the existence of two…
A detailed analysis of halo white dwarf candidates is presented, which is based on model atmosphere fits to observed energy distributions built from photoelectric or photographic magnitudes. Most of the candidates identified in reduced…
We investigate the ionization and the opacity of warm, dense helium under conditions found in the atmospheres of cool white dwarf stars. Our particular interest is in densities up to $\rm 3 g/cm^{3}$ and temperatures from 1000K to 10000K.…
Here, we present near-infrared spectroscopic observations of 15 helium atmosphere, metal-rich white dwarfs obtained at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. While a connection has been demonstrated between the most highly polluted, hydrogen…
We present a spectro-photometric analysis of 2880 cool white dwarfs within 100 pc of the Sun and cooler than Teff = 10,000 K, with grizy Pan-STARRS photometry and Gaia trigonometric parallaxes available. We also supplement our data sets…
In the framework of our extensive modeling study of the spectral evolution of white dwarfs, we present here a new set of detailed calculations of the transport of residual hydrogen in helium-rich white dwarfs. First, we investigate the…
We investigate the dissociation equilibrium of $\rm H_2$ in very cool, helium-rich white dwarf atmospheres. We present the solution of the non-ideal chemical equilibrium for the dissociation of molecular hydrogen in a medium of dense…
White dwarfs are almost completely degenerate objects that cannot obtain energy from thermonuclear sources, so their evolution is just a gravothermal cooling process. Recent improvements in the accuracy and precision of the luminosity…
The present work is designed to explore the evolution of helium-core white dwarf (HeWD) stars for the case of metallicities much lower than the solar one (Z=0.001 and Z=0.0002). Evolution is followed in a self-consistent way with the…
We investigate whether nearby white dwarfs (WDs) can constrain dark matter (DM) interactions with ordinary matter. As experimental sensitivity improves, driven by the Gaia mission, the sample volume of nearby WDs has been increasing over…
Ultra-cool white dwarfs are among the oldest stellar remnants in the Universe. Their efficient gravitational settling and low effective temperatures are responsible for the smooth spectra they exhibit. For that reason, it is not possible to…
We describe the spectral classification of white dwarfs and some of the physical processes important for their understanding. In the major part of this paper we discuss the input physics and computational methods for one of the most widely…
We present new spectroscopic and photometric measurements of the white dwarfs LHS 3250 and WD 0346+246. Along with F351-50, these white dwarfs are the coolest ones known, all with effective temperatures below 4000 K. Their membership in the…