Related papers: Astro2020 Science White Paper: Fundamental Physics…

Magnetic interactions between a planet and its environment are known to lead to aurorae and shocks in the solar system. The large number of close-in exoplanets that have been discovered so far triggered a renewed interest in understanding…

In the vast expanse of our galaxy, white dwarfs (WDs) are natural sentinels, capturing the enigmatic dark matter (DM) particles that incessantly traverse their interiors. These celestial bodies provide a unique vantage point for probing…

White dwarfs represent the last stage of evolution of stars with mass less than about eight times that of the Sun and, like other stars, are often found in binaries. If the orbital period of the binary is short enough, energy losses from…

A small percentage of normal stars harbor giant planets that orbit within a few tenths of an astronomical unit. At such distances the potential exists for significant tidal and magnetic field interaction resulting in energy dissipation that…

We study the effects of exceptionally light QCD axions on the stellar configuration of white dwarfs. At finite baryon density, the non-derivative coupling of the axion to nucleons displaces the axion from its in-vacuum minimum which implies…

The purpose of this work is to present accurate and detailed mass-radius relations for white dwarf (WD) models with helium, carbon, oxygen, silicon and iron cores, by using a fully updated stellar evolutionary code. We considered masses…

The very recent discovery of planets orbiting very low mass stars sheds light on these exotic objects. Planetary systems around low-mass stars and brown dwarfs are very different from our solar system: the planets are expected to be much…

We present high precision, model independent, mass and radius measurements for 16 white dwarfs in detached eclipsing binaries and combine these with previously published data to test the theoretical white dwarf mass-radius relationship. We…

Kinematic investigations are being increasingly deployed in studies of the lowest mass stars and brown dwarfs to investigate their origins, characterize their atmospheres, and examine the evolution of their physical parameters. This article…

This whitepaper focuses on the astrophysical systematics which are encountered in dark matter searches. Oftentimes in indirect and also in direct dark matter searches, astrophysical systematics are a major limiting factor to sensitivity to…

Radio observations of ultracool dwarfs, objects comprising brown dwarfs and the very lowest mass stars, have mainly focused on analyzing their light-curve and spectral energy distributions providing valuable insights into their magnetic…

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…

The current understanding of dark matter comes largely from measurements of the total matter content in the universe, from the distribution of gravitating matter on very large scales, and from rotation curves and velocity dispersions on…

The white dwarf mass distribution has been studied primarily at two extremes: objects that presumably evolved as single stars and members of close binaries that likely underwent substantial interaction. This work considers the intermediate…

The formation scenarios for single low-mass (M < 0.45 Msol) white dwarfs include enhanced mass loss from a metal-rich progenitor star or a common envelope phase of a solar-like star with a close-in massive planet or a brown dwarf. Both…

The detailed interior structure models of super-Earth planets show that there is degeneracy in the possible bulk compositions of a super-Earth at a given mass and radius, determined via radial velocity and transit measurements,…

We live in an exoplanet revolution, with more than 5,000 exoplanets detected to date. Our ability to characterise individual exoplanets is constantly improving, with exquisite mass and radius measurements for an ever-growing sample of…

We produce the simple formula for the radius R of a cold body of mass M, (4 pi rho/3)^{1/3} R = I.M^{1/3} / [1+ (M/Mp)^{2/3}], where I is one for white dwarfs with non-relativistic electrons, but depends on the ratio of the total mass to…

We compute static equilibria of white dwarf stars containing strong poloidal magnetic field, and present the modification of white dwarf mass-radius relation caused by the magnetic field. We find that a maximum white dwarf mass of about…

Terrestrial planets born beyond 1-3 AU have been theorized to avoid being engulfed during the red-giant phases of their host stars. Nevertheless, only a few gas-giant planets have been observed around white dwarfs (WDs) -- the end product…