Related papers: White dwarf collisions and the meteoritic Ne-E ann…
Prior studies have hypothesized that some polluted white dwarfs record continent-like granitic crust--which is abundant on Earth and perhaps uniquely indicative of plate tectonics. But these inferences derive from only a few elements, none…
The formation mechanisms and chemical compositions of brown dwarfs likely span a diverse range. If they are formed predominantly in isolation by gravitational collapse like dwarf stars then their compositions might follow those of dwarf…
The discovery of amino acids in meteorites has presented two clues to the origin of their processing subsequent to their formation: a slight preference for left-handedness in some of them, and isotopic anomalies in some of their constituent…
With XMM-Newton and the Spitzer Space Telescope, we obtain upper bounds to the X-ray fluxes from G29-38 and GD 362, and the 70 micron flux from G29-38. These data provide indirect evidence that G29-38 is accreting from a tidally-disrupted…
The formation of neutron stars (NSs), both from collapses of massive stars and mergers of compact objects, can be usually indicated by bright transients emitted from explosively-ejected material. In particular, if the newborn NSs can rotate…
We numerically investigate abundance properties of the Galactic globular clusters (GCs) by adopting a new ``external pollution'' scenario. In this framework, GCs are assumed to originate in forming low-mass dwarfs embedded in dark matter…
Nova explosions occur on the white dwarf component of a Cataclysmic Variable binary stellar system that is accreting matter lost by its companion. When sufficient material has been accreted by the white dwarf, a thermonuclear runaway occurs…
The presence or absence of variations in the mass-independent abundances of Si isotopes in bulk meteorites provides important clues concerning the evolution of the early solar system. No Si isotopic anomalies have been found within the…
Binary star systems containing a neutron star or a black hole with an evolved, massive star are dynamically perturbed when the latter undergoes a supernova explosion. It is possible that the natal kick received by the newly-formed neutron…
Context. Classical novae are thermonuclear explosions that take place in the envelopes of accreting white dwarfs in stellar binary systems. The material transferred onto the white dwarf piles up under degenerate conditions, driving a…
WD J2356$-$209 is a cool metal-polluted white dwarf whose visible spectrum is dominated by a strong and broad sodium feature. Although discovered nearly two decades ago, no detailed and realistic analysis of this star had yet been realized.…
Spitzer Space Telescope spectra reveal 10 micron silicate emission from circumstellar dust orbiting six externally-polluted white dwarfs. Micron-size glasses with an olivine stoichiometry can account for the distinctively broad wings that…
The failure of S and O abundances in most planetary nebulae to display the same strong direct correlation that is observed in extragalactic H II regions represents one of the most perplexing problems in the area of PN abundances today.…
Metal pollution in white dwarf atmospheres may be the accreted remnants of planetary objects. After the discovery of disintegrating planetary objects transiting WD 1145+017 (Vanderburg et al. 2015), undergraduates in the University of…
The precise origin of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is unknown despite their value to numerous areas in astronomy. While it is a long-standing consensus that they arise from an explosion of a carbon/oxygen white dwarf, the exact progenitor…
This paper gives an overview of the properties of all possible equilibrium sequences of compact strange-matter stars with nuclear crusts, which range from strange stars to strange dwarfs. In contrast to their non-strange counterparts,…
In recent years, searches of archival X-ray data have revealed galaxies exhibiting nuclear quasi-periodic eruptions with periods of several hours. These are reminiscent of the tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole, and the…
Motivated by the strong discrepancy between the main sequence turn-off age and the white dwarf cooling age in the metal-rich open cluster NGC 6791, we compute a grid of white dwarf evolutionary sequences that incorporates for the first time…
Recent calculations of accretion-induced collapse of an oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarf into a neutron star [Piro & Thompson 2014] allow for a potentially detectable transient electromagnetic signal. Motivated by these results, I present…
We propose that the remarkable object Swift J1644+57, in which multiple recurring hard X-ray flares were seen over a span of several days, is a system in which a white dwarf was tidally disrupted by an intermediate mass black hole.…