Related papers: White dwarfs as Physics laboratories: lights and s…
White dwarfs are stellar remnants devoid of a nuclear energy source, gradually cooling over billions of years and eventually freezing into a solid state from the inside out. Recently, it was discovered that a population of freezing white…
The physics of compact objects is one of the very actively developing branches of theoretical investigations, since the careful analysis of different models for the internal structure of these objects, their evolutionary characteristics and…
A variation of the gravitational constant over cosmological ages modifies the main sequence lifetimes and white dwarf cooling ages. Using an state-of-the-art stellar evolutionary code we compute the effects of a secularly varying G on the…
There are a few different mechanisms that can cause white dwarf stars to vary in brightness, providing opportunities to probe the physics, structures, and formation of these compact stellar remnants. The observational characteristics of the…
Cooling ages of white dwarfs are routinely determined by mapping effective temperatures and masses to ages using evolutionary models. Typically, the reported uncertainties on cooling ages only consider the error propagation of the…
Aims: We study single and binary white dwarfs in the inner halo of the Milky Way in order to learn more about the conditions under which the population of halo stars was born, such as the initial mass function (IMF), the star formation…
White dwarfs carry information on the structure and evolution of the Galaxy, especially through their luminosity function and initial-to-final mass relation. Very cool white dwarfs provide insight into the early ages of each population.…
Recent determinations of the white dwarf luminosity function (WDLF) from very large surveys have extended our knowledge of the WDLF to very high luminosities. It has been shown that the shape of the luminosity function of white dwarfs…
Brown dwarfs are natural clocks, cooling and dimming over time due to insufficient core fusion. They are also numerous and present in nearly all Galactic environments, making them potentially useful chronometers for a variety of Galactic…
A detailed analysis of halo white dwarf candidates is presented, which is based on model atmosphere fits to observed energy distributions built from photoelectric or photographic magnitudes. Most of the candidates identified in reduced…
From data collection to photometric fitting and analysis of white dwarfs to generating a white dwarf luminosity function requires numerous Astrophysical, Mathematical and Computational domain knowledge. The steep learning curve makes it…
A simple cooling model of white dwarf stars is re-analyzed in Palatini $f(R)$ gravity. Modified gravity affects the white dwarf structures and consequently their ages. We find that the resulting super-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs need more…
Theories that attempt to unify the four fundamental interactions and alternative theories of gravity predict time and/or spatial variation of the fundamental constants of nature. Different versions of these theories predict different…
A secular variation of $G$ modifies the structure and evolutionary time scales of white dwarfs. Using an state-of-the-art stellar evolutionary code, an up-to-date pulsational code, and a detailed population synthesis code we demonstrate…
Ultra-massive white dwarfs are powerful tools to study various physical processes in the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB), type Ia supernova explosions and the theory of crystallization through white dwarf asteroseismology. Despite the…
The spectral distribution of field white dwarfs shows a feature called the "non-DA gap". As defined by Bergeron et al., this is a temperature range (5100K--6100K) where relatively few non-DA stars are found, even though such stars are…
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…
We discuss some of our current knowledge of the mass distribution of DA and non-DA stars using various methods for measuring white dwarf masses including spectroscopic, trigonometric parallax, and gravitational redshift measurements, with a…
We consider the evolution of white dwarfs with compact object companions (specifically black holes with masses up to 10^6 solar masses, neutron stars, and other white dwarfs). We suppose that the orbits are initially quite elliptical and…
We make use of the high photometric precision of Kepler to search for periodic modulations among 14 normal (DA- and DB-type, likely non-magnetic) hot white dwarfs (WDs). In five, and possibly up to seven of the WDs, we detect periodic, ~2…