Related papers: Intermediate-Mass Stars Become Magnetic White Dwar…
Numerical and observational evidence suggests that massive white dwarfs dominate the innermost regions of core-collapsed globular clusters by both number and total mass. Using NGC 6397 as a test case, we constrain the features of white…
The magnetism and rotation of white dwarf (WD) stars are investigated in relation to a hydromagnetic dynamo operating in the progenitor during shell burning phases. The downward pumping of angular momentum in the convective envelope, in…
This review talk explores the diverse outcomes of white dwarf mergers, emphasising that not all double degenerate mergers result in supernovae. Possible outcomes include the formation of a more massive WD, partial explosions that leave…
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…
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 presence of planets around solar-type stars suggests that many white dwarfs should have relic planetary systems. While planets closer than $\sim$ 5~AU will most likely not survive the post-main sequence lifetime of its parent star, any…
We present a model to account for the observed debris disks around young white dwarfs and the presence of metal-lines in their spectra. Stellar evolution models predict that the mass-loss on the AGB will be pulsed; furthermore, observations…
We explore collisions between two white dwarfs as a pathway for making Type Ia Supernovae (SNIa). White dwarf number densities in globular clusters allow 10-100 redshift <1 collisions per year, and observations by (Chomiuk et al. 2008) of…
The existence of supermassive black holes lurking in the centers of galaxies and of stellar binary systems containing a black hole with a few solar masses has been established beyond reasonable doubt. The idea that black holes of…
Low mass white dwarfs are the remnants of disrupted red giant stars in binary millisecond pulsars and other exotic binary star systems. Some low mass white dwarfs cool rapidly, while others stay bright for millions of years due to stable…
The astrophysical origins of the heaviest stable elements that we observe today in the Solar System are still not fully understood. Recent studies have demonstrated that H-accreting white dwarfs (WDs) in a binary sys- tem exploding as type…
We present an initial-final mass relation derived from the spectroscopically-complete volume-limited 40 pc sample of white dwarfs. The relation is modelled using population synthesis methods to derive an initial stellar population which can…
We revisit the properties and astrophysical implications of the field white dwarf mass distribution in preparation of Gaia applications. Our study is based on the two samples with the best established completeness and most precise…
Recently, several white dwarfs with very strong surface magnetic fields have been observed. In this paper we explore the possibility that such stars could have sufficiently strong internal fields to alter their structure. We obtain a…
Among a dozen known magnetar candidates there are no binary objects. As an estimate of a fraction of binary neutron stars is about 10% it is reasonable to address the question of solitarity of magnetars, to estimate theoretically the…
The nature of the progenitors of type Ia supernovae is still a mystery. While plausible candidates are known for both the single degenerate and double degenerate models, the observed numbers fall significantly short of what is required to…
We investigate the contribution to the formation of type Ia supernovae of the single (a white dwarf accreting from a non-degenerate companion) and double (two merging white dwarfs) degenerate scenario, as well as various aspects of the…
Ultramassive white dwarfs with masses $M\gtrsim 1.1\,{\rm M}_\odot$ probe extreme physics near the Chandrasekhar limit. Despite the rapid increase in observations, it is still unclear how many harbour carbon-oxygen (CO) versus oxygen-neon…
We searched the Gaia DR3 database for ultramassive white dwarfs with kinematics consistent with having escaped the nearby Hyades open cluster, identifying three such candidates. Two of these candidates have masses estimated from Gaia…
We have investigated the origin of a sub-class of carbon-polluted white dwarfs (DQ) originally identified as the ``hot DQ" white dwarfs. These objects are relatively hot (10 000 < T_eff < 25 000 K), have markedly higher carbon abundance…