Related papers: A Crystallizing White Dwarf in a Sirius-Like Quadr…
We report the identification of the double degenerate system NLTT 16249 that comprises a normal, hydrogen-rich (DA) white dwarf and a peculiar, carbon-polluted white dwarf (DQ) showing photospheric traces of nitrogen. We disentangled the…
Given the importance of white dwarfs (WDs) in many fields of modern astrophysics, the precise knowledge of the actual degree of accuracy of the associated theoretical predictions is a primary task. In the first paper of a series dedicated…
More than 40 years have passed since Ed Salpeter and others predicted that the carbon/oxygen cores of the coolest white dwarf stars in our Galaxy will theoretically crystallize. This effect has a dramatic impact on the calculated ages of…
We present a grid of evolutionary tracks for low-mass white dwarfs with helium cores in the mass range from 0.179 to 0.414 M_sun. The lower mass limit is well suited for comparison with white dwarf companions of millisecond pulsars (MSP).…
The White Dwarf Binary Pathways Survey aims at increasing the number of known detached A, F, G and K main sequence stars in close orbits with white dwarf companions (WD+AFGK binaries) to refine our understanding about compact binary…
White dwarf stars constitute the final evolutionary stage for more than 95 per cent of all stars. The Galactic population of white dwarfs conveys a wealth of information about several fundamental issues and are of vital importance to study…
The purpose of this work is to explore the evolution of helium-core white dwarf stars in a self-consistent way with the predictions of detailed non-gray model atmospheres and element diffusion. To this end, we consider helium-core white…
Recently, some hot DA-type white dwarfs have been proposed to plausibly be escaping members of the Hyades. We used hydrogen Balmer lines to measure the radial velocities of seven such stars and confirm that three, and perhaps two others,…
Ultra-cool dwarfs as wide companions to subgiants, giants, white dwarfs and main sequence stars can be very good benchmark objects, for which we can infer physical properties with minimal reference to theoretical models, through association…
We present a new set of cooling models and isochrones for both H- and He-atmosphere white dwarfs, incorporating accurate boundary conditions from detailed model atmosphere calculations, and carbon-oxygen chemical abundance profiles based on…
The age-metallicity relation is a fundamental tool for constraining the chemical evolution of the Galactic disc. In this work we analyse the observational properties of this relation using binary stars that have not interacted consisting of…
White dwarf stars are the most common final stage of stellar evolution. Since the serendipitous discovery of the first white dwarf by William Herschel and the first physical models by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Arthur Eddington, there…
By comparing two age indicators of high-mass white dwarfs derived from Gaia data, two discoveries have been made recently: one is the existence of a cooling anomaly that produces the Q branch structure on the Hertzsprung--Russell diagram,…
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…
Recent surveys of close white dwarf binaries as well as single white dwarfs have provided evidence for the late appearance of magnetic fields in white dwarfs, and a possible generation mechanism a crystallization and rotation-driven dynamo…
In astrophysics, we often aim to estimate one or more parameters for each member object in a population and study the distribution of the fitted parameters across the population. In this paper, we develop novel methods that allow us to take…
We present the first detailed 3D kinematic analysis of a sample of 3133 white dwarfs that use Gaia astrometry plus radial velocities, which were measured either by Gaia or by ground based spectroscopic observations. The sample includes…
The Hyades cluster is known to harbour ten so-called classical white dwarf members. Numerous studies through the years have predicted that more than twice this amount of degenerate stars should be associated with the cluster. Using the…
Sufficiently old white dwarfs cool down through a convective envelope that directly couples their degenerate cores to the surface. Magnetic fields may inhibit this convection by stiffening the criterion for convective instability. We…
White dwarf stars have attracted considerable attention in the past 15 years as hosts for potentially habitable planets, but their low luminosity and continuous cooling are major challenges for habitability. Recently, astronomers have found…