Related papers: The spectral evolution of white dwarfs: where do w…
We describe the spectral classification of white dwarfs and some of the physical processes important for their understanding. In the major part of this paper we discuss the input physics and computational methods for one of the most widely…
With the first observations of debris disks as well as proposed planets around white dwarfs, the question of how rocky planets around such stellar remnants can be characterized and probed for signs of life becomes tangible. White dwarfs are…
We present a detailed spectroscopic analysis of 115 helium-line (DB) and 28 cool, He-rich hydrogen-line (DA) white dwarfs based on atmosphere fits to optical spectroscopy and photometry. We find that 63% of our DB population show hydrogen…
White dwarfs are a class of stars with unique physical properties. They present many challenging problems whose solution requires the application of advanced theories of dense matter, state-of-the-art experimental techniques, and extensive…
A non negligible fraction of white dwarf stars show the presence of heavy elements in their atmospheres. The most accepted explanation for this contamination is the accretion of material coming from tidally disrupted planetesimals, which…
In the past few decades, observations have revealed signatures of metals polluting the atmospheres of white dwarfs. The diffusion timescale for metals to sink from the atmosphere of a white dwarf is of the order of days for a…
Atmospheric parameters for hot DB (helium atmosphere) white dwarfs near effective temperatures of 25000K are extremely difficult to determine from optical spectroscopy. This is particularly unfortunate, because this is the range of variable…
We continue our comprehensive theoretical investigation of the spectral evolution of white dwarfs based on sophisticated simulations of element transport. In this paper, we focus on the transformation of PG 1159 stars into DO/DB white…
White dwarfs are the remnants of stars not massive enough to become supernovae. This review explores the concept of strange dwarfs, a unique class of white dwarfs which contain cores of strange quark matter. Strange dwarfs have different…
The characterization of white dwarf atmospheres is crucial for accurately deriving stellar parameters such as effective temperature, mass, and age. We aim to classify the population of white dwarfs up to 500 pc into hydrogen-rich or…
White dwarf stars, the endpoint of stellar evolution for 97% of stars in our Milky Way, offer a unique and powerful window into the bulk elemental composition of rocky exoplanetary bodies. Up to 50% of single white dwarfs are observed with…
White dwarfs with metal-polluted atmospheres have been studied widely in the context of the accretion of rocky debris from evolved planetary systems. One open question is the geometry of accretion and how material arrives and mixes in the…
White dwarfs that have accreted rocky planetary bodies provide unique insights regarding the bulk composition of exoplanetary material. The analysis presented here uses observed white dwarf atmospheric abundances to constrain both where in…
We present a small collection of FUSE spectra representative of the main spectral classes found in white dwarf stars. In addition, we also discuss another family of hot evolved stars, that of the hot subdwarfs. Both families belong to the…
Several groups have recently suggested that small planets orbiting very closely around white dwarf stars could be promising locations for life to arise, even after stellar death. There are still many uncertainties, however, regarding the…
Over the last decade {\it ab initio} modeling of material properties has become widespread in diverse fields of research. It has proved to be a powerful tool for predicting various properties of matter under extreme conditions. We apply…
The atmospheres of cool, helium-rich white dwarfs constitute an exotic and poorly explored physical regime of stellar atmospheres. Under physical conditions where the temperature varies from $\rm 1000K$ to $\rm 10000K$, the density can…
We present a spectro-photometric analysis of 2880 cool white dwarfs within 100 pc of the Sun and cooler than Teff = 10,000 K, with grizy Pan-STARRS photometry and Gaia trigonometric parallaxes available. We also supplement our data sets…
Hydrogen-rich white dwarfs (WDs) comprise the majority of the WD population, but are only rarely found at the very hot end of the WD cooling sequence. A small subgroup that exhibits both hydrogen and helium lines in their spectra, the…
We report the discovery of a new class of hydrogen-deficient stars: white dwarfs with an atmosphere primarily composed of carbon, with little or no trace of hydrogen or helium. Our analysis shows that the atmospheric parameters found for…