Related papers: White Dwarf Kinematics vs Mass

We present kinematics of a sample of 398 DA white dwarfs from the SPY project (ESO SN Ia Progenitor surveY) and discuss kinematic criteria for a distinction of thin disk, thick disk, and halo populations. This is the largest homogeneous…

White dwarfs (WDs) can be used as laboratories to test strong gravity and high-density regimes, once their equation of state is not so uncertain as the one of neutron stars. This makes them also a useful tool to constrain dark-matter…

Surveys of young star-forming regions have discovered a growing population of planetary-mass (<13 M_Jup) companions around young stars. There is an ongoing debate as to whether these companions formed like planets (that is, from the…

Approximately 25--50\% of white dwarfs (WDs) exhibit metal absorption lines in their photospheres, interpreted as evidence of ongoing/recent accretion of planetary debris from remnant systems. Previous theoretical studies have suggested…

We present an alternative interpretation of the nature of the extremely cool, high-velocity white dwarfs identified by Oppenheimer et al (2001) in a high-latitude astrometric survey. We argue that the velocity distribution of the majority…

We investigate the spectral evolution of white dwarfs by considering the effects of hydrogen mass in the atmosphere and convective overshooting above the convection zone. We notice the importance of the convective overshooting and suggest…

Thanks to the recent space-borne mission Gaia, there is a nearly complete sample of white dwarfs up to about 100 parsecs from the Sun, which may have very diverse origins. We aim to compute the Galactic orbits for white dwarfs observed in…

We present a magnitude and proper motion limited catalogue of ~10,000 white dwarf candidates, obtained from the SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey by means of reduced proper motion selection. This catalogue extends to magnitudes r~19.75 and proper…

The luminosity function of white dwarfs is a powerful tool for studies of the evolution and formation of the Milky Way. The (theoretical) white dwarf cooling sequence provides a useful indicator of the evolutionary time scales involved in…

White dwarfs are the final remnants of low- and intermediate-mass stars. Their evolution is essentially a cooling process that lasts for $\sim 10$ Gyr. Their observed properties provide information about the history of the Galaxy, its dark…

We present a progress report on the kinematical analysis of the entire SPY (ESO SN Ia Progenitor surveY) sample of about one thousand white dwarfs and hot subdwarfs. In a previous study (Pauli et al. 2003, 2006) 398 DA white dwarfs have…

We present an alternative method for the kinematic analysis of high proper motion surveys and discuss its application to the survey of Oppenheimer et al. (2001) for the selection of reliable halo white dwarfs (WDs). The local WD space…

We describe a new multi-colour proper motion survey for cool white dwarfs (CWDs). The observational database consists of ~300 digitally scanned Schmidt plates in ESO/SERC field 287. The entire survey procedure, from the raw Schmidt plate…

We examine the claim by Oppenheimer et al. (2001) that the local halo density of white dwarfs is an order of magnitude higher than previously thought. As it stands, the observational data support the presence of a kinematically distinct…

We have performed a search for halo white dwarfs as high proper motion objects in a second epoch WFPC2 image of the Groth-Westphal strip. We identify 24 high proper motion objects with mu > 0.014 ''/yr. Five of these high proper motion…

In Galactic open clusters, there is an apparent paucity of white dwarfs compared to the number expected assuming a reasonable initial mass function and that main-sequence stars with initial mass <= 8 M_sun become white dwarfs. We suggest…

White Dwarf luminosities are powerful age indicators, whose calibration should be based on reliable models. We discuss the uncertainty of some chemical and physical parameters and their influence on the age estimated by means of white dwarf…

Although 25%-50% of white dwarfs (WDs) display evidence for remnant planetary systems, their orbital architectures and overall sizes remain unknown. Vibrant close-in (~1 Solar radius) circumstellar activity is detected at WDs spanning many…

The initial-final mass relationship of white dwarfs, which is poorly constrained, is of paramount importance for different aspects in modern astrophysics. From an observational perspective, most of the studies up to now have been done using…

White dwarfs (WDs) represent the final evolutionary stage of most stars, typically originating from progenitor stars with masses below approximately 8 $M_{\odot}$ to 10 $M_{\odot}$. Formation through single-star evolution generally requires…