Related papers: White dwarf cooling sequences and cosmochronology
Some globular clusters host multiple stellar populations with different chemical abundance patterns. This is particularly true for $\omega$ Centauri, which shows clear evidence of a helium- enriched sub-population characterized by a helium…
With targeted imaging of groups in the local volume, the regions of collapse around bright galaxies can be clearly identified by the distribution of dwarfs and luminosity functions can be established to very faint levels. In the case of the…
By comparing two age indicators of high-mass white dwarfs derived from Gaia data, two discoveries have been made recently: one is the existence of a cooling anomaly that produces the Q branch structure on the Hertzsprung--Russell diagram,…
We present evolutionary calculations and colors for massive white dwarfs with oxygen-neon cores for masses between 1.06 and 1.28 Mo. The evolutionary stages computed cover the luminosity range from log(L/Lo) approx. 0.5 down to -5.2. Our…
We present new white dwarf cooling models which incorporate an accurate outer boundary condition based on new opacity and detailed radiative transfer calculations. We find that helium atmosphere dwarfs cool considerably faster than has…
There are no known examples of magnetic white dwarfs with fields larger than about 3MG paired with a non-degenerate companion in detached binary systems. The suggestion is that highly magnetic, isolated white dwarfs may originate from stars…
A few questions related to white dwarfs' physics is posed. It seems that the modified gravity framework can be a good starting point to provide alternative explanations to cooling processes, their age determination, and Chandrasekhar mass…
I argue that the rotation of white dwarfs is not a remnant of the angular momentum of their main sequence progenitors but a result of the mass loss process on the AGB. Weak magnetic fields, if present in stellar interiors, are likely to…
White dwarf planetary science is a rapidly growing field of research featuring a diverse set of observations and theoretical explorations. Giant planets, minor planets, and debris discs have all been detected orbiting white dwarfs. The…
In the old, populous, and metal-rich open cluster NGC 6791 we have used deep HST/ACS images to track the white dwarf cooling sequence down to m_F606W~28.5. The white dwarf luminosity function shows a well defined peak at m_F606W~27.4, and a…
The luminosity function of galaxies is derived from a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation of a Lambda cold dark matter (CDM) universe with the aid of a stellar population synthesis model. At z=0, the resulting B band luminosity function…
White dwarfs are excellent forensic tools for studying end-of-life issues surrounding low- and intermediate-mass stars, and the old, solar-metallicity open star cluster Messier 67 is a proven laboratory for the study of stellar evolution…
A popular interpretation of recent microlensing studies of the line of sight towards the Large Magellanic Cloud invokes a population of old white dwarf stars in the Galactic halo. Below I review the basic properties of old white dwarf stars…
In order to recognize environmental effects on the evolution of dwarf galaxies in clusters of galaxies, it is first necessary to quantify the properties of objects which have evolved in relative isolation. With oxygen abundance as the gauge…
We develop the white dwarf luminosity function (LF) of the old open cluster NGC 188 in order to determine a lower limit to the age of the cluster by using the faint end of the cooling sequence. To produce an extensive sequence of the…
Low mass helium-core white dwarfs (M < 0.45 Msun) can be produced from interacting binary systems, and traditionally all of them have been attributed to this channel. However, a low mass white dwarf could also result from a single star that…
We discuss the recent discovery by Oppenheimer et al (2001) of old, cool white dwarf stars, which may be the first direct detection of Galactic halo dark matter. We argue here that the contribution of more mundane white dwarfs of the…
Many magnetic white dwarfs exhibit a polarised spectrum that periodically varies as the star rotates because the magnetic field is not symmetric about the rotation axis. In this work, we report the discovery that while weakly magnetic white…
Practically all known planet hosts will evolve into white dwarfs, and large parts of their planetary systems will survive this transition - the same is true for the solar system beyond the orbit of Mars. Spectroscopy of white dwarfs…
In this paper we demonstrate that the puzzling bright peak in the luminosity function of the white dwarf (WD) cooling sequence of NGC6791 can be naturally accounted for if ~34% of the observed WDs are WD+WD binary systems.