Related papers: Pulsating white dwarfs: new insights
Studies of the resolved stellar populations in nearby systems are crucial to understand galaxy evolution. Here, we summarize how the interpretation of the colour-magnitude diagrams of field stars in late-type dwarfs inside and outside the…
White dwarfs with a F, G or K type companion represent the last common ancestor for a plethora of exotic systems throughout the galaxy, though to this point very few of them have been fully characterised in terms of orbital period and…
We demonstrate that plasmon neutrinos are the dominant form of energy loss in model white dwarf stars down to T_eff ~ 25,000 K, depending on the stellar mass. The lower end of this range overlaps the observed temperatures for the V777 Her…
Circumstellar disks of planetary debris are now known or suspected to closely orbit hundreds of white dwarf stars. To date, both data and theory support disks that are entirely contained within the preceding giant stellar radii, and hence…
The evolution of planetary systems around white dwarfs is crucial to understanding the presence of planetary material in the atmospheres of white dwarfs. These systems uniquely probe exoplanetary compositions. Periodic signals in the…
We suggest that Jovian planets will survive the late stages of stellar evolution, and that white dwarfs will retain planetary systems in wide orbits (>5AU). Utilising evolutionary models for Jovian planets, we show that infra-red imaging…
The Milky Way galaxy is observed to have multiple components with distinct properties, such as the bulge, disk, and halo. Unraveling the assembly history of these populations provides a powerful test to the theory of galaxy formation and…
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…
Evolved stars dominate galactic spectra, enrich the galactic medium, expand to change their planetary systems, eject winds of a complex nature, produce spectacular nebulae and illuminate them, and transfer material between binary…
We present here a detailed pulsational study applied to low-mass He-core white dwarfs, based on full evolutionary models representative of these objects. The background stellar models on which our pulsational analysis was carried out were…
White dwarfs are the remnants of stars not massive enough to become supernovae. This review explores the concept of strange dwarfs, a unique class of white dwarfs which contain cores of strange quark matter. Strange dwarfs have different…
Asteroseismology can make a substantial contribution to our understanding of the formation history and evolution of our Galaxy by providing precisely determined stellar properties for thousands of stars in different regions of the Milky…
Massive stars play a major role not only in stellar evolution but also galactic evolution theory. This is because of their dynamical interaction with binary companions, and because their strong winds and explosive deaths as supernovae…
White dwarf planetary systems provide a unique way to measure the bulk composition of exoplanetary material. Extrasolar asteroids/comets/moons which have survived the evolution of their host star can end up in the atmosphere of the white…
The study of dwarf galaxies in groups is a powerful tool for investigating galaxy evolution, chemical enrichment and environmental effects on these objects. Here we present results obtained for dwarf galaxies in the Centaurus A complex, a…
We use the most recent, complete and independent measurements of masses and radii of white dwarfs in binaries to bound the class of non-trivial modified gravity theories, viable after GW170817/GRB170817, using its effect on the mass-radius…
ZZ Ceti stars are pulsating white dwarfs with a carbon-oxygen core (or possibly ONe for the most massive stars) build up during the core helium burning (CHeB) and thermally pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch (TP-AGB) phases. Through the…
White dwarfs and neutron stars are stellar objects with masses comparable to that of our sun. However, as the endpoint stages of stellar evolution, these objects do not sustain any thermonuclear burning and therefore can no longer support…
Observing the stars in our night sky tells us that giant, supergiant and hypergiant stars hold an unique importance in the understanding of stellar populations. Theoretical stellar models predict a rich tapestry of evolved stars. These…
It was predicted more than 40 years ago that the cores of the coolest white dwarf stars should eventually crystallize. This effect is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in white dwarf cooling models, which are now routinely used to…