Related papers: White Dwarfs as Advanced Physics Laboratories. The…
We discuss the feasibility of using astrophysical observations of white dwarfs as probes of fundamental physics. We quantify the effects of varying fundamental couplings on the white dwarf mass-radius relation in a broad class of…
In recent times, astounding observations of both over- and under-luminous type Ia supernovae have emerged. These peculiar observations hint not only at surpassing the Chandrasekhar limit but may also suggest potential modifications in the…
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…
A significant fraction of white dwarfs possess a magnetic field with strengths ranging from a few kG up to about 1000 MG. However, the incidence of magnetism varies when the white dwarf population is broken down into different spectral…
Axion as one of the promising dark matter candidates can be detected through narrow radio lines emitted from the magnetic white dwarf stars. Due to the existence of the strong magnetic field, the axion may resonantly convert into the radio…
We propose that the anomalously bright white dwarf luminosity function observed in NGC 6791 (Bedin et al 2005) is the consequence of the formation of 0.5 Msun white dwarfs with Helium cores instead of Carbon cores. This may happen if mass…
We analyse the cooling of white dwarfs in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae to look for evidence of axion emission affecting the rate of white dwarf cooling. If axions exist and couple to electrons, then axions could be produced at an…
Axion-photon oscillation refers to the process of mutual conversion between photons and axions when they propagate in a magnetic field. This process depends on the strength of the background magnetic field, and magnetic white dwarfs provide…
Context. White dwarfs can be used to study the structure and evolution of the Galaxy by analysing their luminosity function and initial mass function. Among them, the very cool white dwarfs provide the information for the early ages of each…
We study ultralight scalar fields with quadratic couplings to Standard-Model fermions and derive strong constraints from white-dwarf mass-radius data. Such couplings source scalar profiles inside compact stars, shift fermion masses, and can…
We describe a new survey for cool white dwarfs that supplements Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometry with USNO proper motions and follow-up spectroscopy. To date we have discovered and spectroscopically confirmed 80 new moderate temperature…
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…
I present an algorithm for inverting the luminosity function for white dwarfs to obtain a maximum likelihood estimate of the star formation rate of the host stellar population. The algorithm is of the general class of Expectation…
Deriving precise stellar ages is a challenging task. Consequently, age-dependent relations - such as the age-metallicity and age-velocity dispersion relations of the Milky Way, or the age-rotation-activity relation of low-mass stars - are…
Recent measurements made by Hipparcos (Provencal et al. 1998) present observational evidence supporting the existence of some white dwarf (WD) stars with iron - rich, core composition. In this connection, the present paper is aimed at…
The Gaia data will help to improve the construction of a luminosity function for the disk and the halo and will provide a more accurate determination of the age of our solar neighborhood. Moreover, reliable stellar dynamical investigations…
White dwarf (WD) stars are considered cosmic laboratories to study the physics of dense plasma. Furthermore, the use of WD stars as cosmic clocks to date stellar populations and main sequence companions demands an appropriate understanding…
There has been a growing interest within the astrophysics community in highly magnetized and fast-spinning white dwarfs (WDs), commonly referred to as HMWDs. WDs with these characteristics are quite uncommon and possess magnetic fields…
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…
The recent discovery of microlensing of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud has excited much interest in the nature of the lensing population. Detailed analyses indicate that the mass of these objects ranges from 0.3-0.8 solar masses,…