Related papers: Testing White Dwarf Age Estimates using Wide Doubl…
White dwarf stars have been used for decades as precise and accurate age indicators. This work presents a test of the reliability of white dwarf total ages when spectroscopic observations are available. We conduct follow-up spectroscopy of…
White dwarfs (WDs) offer unrealized potential in solving two problems in astrophysics: stellar age accuracy and precision. WD cooling ages can be inferred from surface temperatures and radii, which can be constrained with precision by high…
We analyze 4\,050 wide binary star systems involving a white dwarf (WD) and usually a main sequence (MS) star, drawn from the large sample assembled by \citet[][hereafter, T20]{Tian_2020}. Using the modeling code BASE-9, we determine the…
Observational tests of stellar and Galactic chemical evolution call for the joint knowledge of a star's physical parameters, detailed element abundances, and precise age. For cool main-sequence (MS) stars the abundances of many elements can…
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…
We present follow-up spectroscopy and a detailed model atmosphere analysis of 29 wide double white dwarfs, including eight systems with a crystallized C/O core member. We use state-of-the-art evolutionary models to constrain the physical…
Stellar ages are extremely difficult to determine and often subject to large uncertainties, especially for field low-mass stars. We plan to carry out a calibration of the decrease in high-energy emissions of low-mass GKM stars with time,…
We determine the distribution of cooling ages of massive Gaia EDR3 white dwarfs identified with over 90% probability within 200 pc and with mass in the range 0.95-1.25 $M_\odot$. Using three sets of publicly available models, we consider…
White dwarfs (WDs) are powerful tools to study the evolutionary history of stars and binaries in the Galaxy. But do we understand their multiplicity from a theoretical point of view? This can be tested by a comparison with the sample of WDs…
We carried out a spectroscopic investigation of single lined white dwarfs (WDs) in double degenerate (DD) systems and discuss their binary evolution. Simulated spectra of the Halpha region are used to derive upper limits on the temperature…
White dwarfs (WDs), the evolutionary endpoints of most stars, can form through both single-star and binary channels. While single-star evolutionary models enable reliable WD age estimates, binary evolution introduces interactions that can…
I explore the current ability of both white dwarf cooling theory and main sequence stellar evolution theory to accurately determine stellar population ages by comparing ages derived using both techniques for open clusters ranging from 0.1…
Context: White dwarfs (WDs) are important and abundant tools to study the structure and evolution of the Galactic environment. However, the multiplicity of WD progenitors is generally neglected. Specifically, a merger in a binary system can…
Using WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope, we have isolated a sample of 258 white dwarfs (WDs) in the Galactic globular cluster M4. Fields at three radial distances from the cluster center were observed and sizeable WD populations were…
Studies of cool white dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood have placed a limit on the age of the Galactic disk of 8-9 billion years. However, determining their cooling ages requires the knowledge of their effective temperatures, masses, radii,…
A deep imaging survey covering the entire $23\arcmin$ diameter of the old open cluster M67 to $V = 25$ has been carried out using the mosaic imager (UHCam) on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. The cluster color-magnitude diagram (CMD) can…
Currently there are two main techniques for independently determining the ages of stellar populations: main sequence evolution theory (via cluster isochrones) and white dwarf cooling theory. Open clusters provide the ideal environment for…
White Dwarfs (WDs) are the final evolutionary product of the vast majority of stars in the Universe. They are electron-degenerate structures characterized by no stable thermonuclear activity, and their evolution is generally described as a…
We use 156 044 white dwarf candidates with $\geq5\sigma$ significant parallax measurements from the Gaia mission to measure the velocity dispersion of the Galactic disc; $(\sigma_U,\sigma_V,\sigma_W) = (30.8, 23.9, 20.0)$ km s$^{-1}$. We…
We provide the first age estimates for two recently discovered white dwarf-red subdwarf systems, LHS 193AB and LHS 300AB. These unusual systems provide a new opportunity for linking the reliable age estimates for the white dwarfs to the…