Related papers: An Upper Bound to the Space Density of Interstella…
We determine the phase diagram for dense carbon/ oxygen mixtures in White Dwarf (WD) star interiors using molecular dynamics simulations involving liquid and solid phases. Our phase diagram agrees well with predictions from Ogata et al. and…
The properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) surrounding a planetary system can impact planetary climate through a number of mechanisms, including changing the size of the astrosphere (one of the major shields for cosmic rays) as well as…
(Abridged) We present the results of the first unbiased survey for metal pollution among H-atmosphere (DA) white dwarfs with cooling ages of 20-200 Myr and 17000K < Teff < 27000K, using HST COS in the far UV between 1130 and 1435 A. The…
We compute that extrasolar minor planets can retain much of their internal H_2O during their host star's red giant evolution. The eventual accretion of a water-rich body or bodies onto a helium white dwarf might supply an observable amount…
We examine the chemical abundance constraints on a population of white dwarfs in the Halo of our Galaxy. We are motivated by microlensing evidence for massive compact halo objects (Machos) in the Galactic Halo, but our work constrains white…
Recent studies of the atmospheres of carbon-rich (DQ) white dwarfs have demonstrated the existence of two different populations that are distinguished by the temperature range, but more importantly, by the extremely high masses of the…
Interstellar bubbles around O stars are driven by a combination of the star's wind and ionizing radiation output. The wind contribution is uncertain because the boundary between the wind and interstellar medium is difficult to observe.…
High spatial and spectral resolution observations of the atomic interstellar medium in nearby dwarf galaxies reveal evidence for warm and cold neutral gas, just like the phases in our own Galaxy. The cold or quiescent phase (about 20% of…
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play a key role in measuring cosmological parameters, in which the Phillips relation is adopted. However, the origin of the relation is still unclear. Several parameters are suggested, e.g. the relative content…
Debris disks are dusty, gas-poor disks around main sequence stars (Backman & Paresce 1993; Lagrange, Backman & Artymowicz 2000; Zuckerman 2001). Micron-sized dust grains are inferred to exist in these systems from measurements of their…
Stellar evolution models which include the effect of helium and heavy element diffusion have been calculated for initial iron abundances of [Fe/H] = -2.3, -2.1, -1.9 and -1.7. These models were calculated for a large variety of masses and…
We studied the global characteristics of dust emission in a large sample of emission-line star-forming galaxies. The sample consists of two subsamples. One subsample (SDSS sample) includes ~4000 compact star-forming galaxies from the SDSS,…
White dwarf photospheric parameters are usually obtained by means of spectroscopic or photometric analysis. These results are not always consistent with each other, with the published values often including just the statistical…
Using observations of Spitzer/IRAC, we report the serendipitous discovery of excess infrared emission from a single white dwarf PG 0010+280. At a temperature of 27,220 K and a cooling age of 16 Myr, it is the hottest and youngest white…
As a result of competing physical mechanisms, the atmospheric composition of white dwarfs changes throughout their evolution, a process known as spectral evolution. Because of the ambiguity of their atmospheric compositions and the…
A widely-held assumption is that each single white dwarf containing observable rocky debris requires the presence of at least one terrestrial or giant planet to have gravitationally perturbed the progenitor of the debris into the star.…
Rocky planets orbiting M-dwarf stars are prime targets for atmospheric characterization, yet their long-term evolution under intense stellar winds and high-energy radiation remains poorly constrained. The Kepler-1649 system, hosting two…
We present a detailed calculation of the evolution of low-mass ($< 0.25~M_\odot $) helium white dwarfs. These white dwarfs (the optical companions to binary millisecond pulsars) are formed via long-term, low-mass binary evolution. After…
Helium rich subdwarf O stars (sdOs) are hot compact stars in a pre-white dwarf evolutionary state. Most of them have effective temperatures and surface gravities in the range Teff = 40,000-50,000 K and log g = 5.5-6.0. Their atmospheres are…
Infrared studies have revealed debris likely related to planet formation in orbit around ~30% of youthful, intermediate mass, main sequence stars. We present evidence, based on atmospheric pollution by various elements heavier than helium,…