Related papers: On the crystallization onset in white dwarfs
The superheating that usually occurs when a solid is melted by volumetric heating can produce irregular solid-liquid interfaces. Such interfaces can be visualised in ice, where they are sometimes known as Tyndall stars. This paper describes…
We investigate the evolution of cooling helium atmosphere white dwarfs using a full evolutionary code, specifically developed for following the effects of element diffusion and gravitational settling on white dwarf cooling. The major…
We systematically explore the evolution of the merger of two carbon-oxygen (CO) white dwarfs. The dynamical evolution of a 0.9 Msun + 0.6 Msun CO white dwarf merger is followed by a three-dimensional SPH simulation. We use an elaborate…
In binaries composed of either early-type stars or white dwarfs, the dominant tidal process involves the excitation of internal gravity waves (IGWs), which propagate towards the stellar surface, and their dissipation via nonlinear wave…
We enhance the treatment of crystallization for models of white dwarfs (WDs) in the stellar evolution software MESA by implementing carbon-oxygen (C/O) phase separation. The phase separation process during crystallization leads to transport…
When white dwarfs freeze the plasma mixtures inside them undergo separation processes which can produce radical changes in the composition profile of the star. The abundance of neutron rich elements, such as $^{22}$Ne or $^{56}$Fe,…
Wigner crystallization of electrons in a 2D quantum dots is reported. It proceeds in two stages: I) via radial ordering of electrons on shells and II) freezing of the inter-shell rotation. The phase boundary of the crystal is computed in…
We report a systematic molecular dynamics study of the isochoric equilibration of hard-sphere fluids in their metastable regime close to the glass transition. The thermalization process starts with the system prepared in a non-equilibrium…
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…
In this paper we compute detailed evolutionary models providing chemical profiles for white dwarfs having progenitors in the mass range from 1.0 to $7 M_{\sun}$ and we examine the influence of such profiles in the cooling process. 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…
The evolution of binaries consisting of evolved main sequence stars (1 < M_d/Msun < 3.5) with white dwarf companions (0.7 < M_wd/Msun < 1.2) is investigated through the thermal mass transfer phase. Taking into account the stabilizing effect…
We summarize recent improvements in model atmosphere and internal structure of faint white dwarfs. We derive an analytical cooling theory which illustrates the effects of various physical processes on the energy budget and the cooling…
Many white dwarfs are observed in compact double white dwarf binaries and, through the emission of gravitational waves, a large fraction are destined to merge. The merger remnants that do not explode in a Type Ia supernova are expected to…
The possibility of the formation of a condensate of charged spin-0 nuclei inside white dwarf cores, studied in arXiv:0806.3692 and arXiv:0904.4267, is pursued further. It has been shown, for cores composed mainly of one element (Helium or…
Do white dwarfs have inner cores made of iron? Neutron rich nuclei like $^{56}$Fe experience a net gravitational force and sediment toward the core. Using new phase diagrams and molecular dynamics simulations, we show that $^{56}$Fe should…
White dwarfs that have accreted planetary materials provide a powerful tool to probe the interiors and formation of exoplanets. In particular, the high Fe/Si ratio of some white dwarf pollutants suggests that they are fragments of bodies…
Motivated by the strong discrepancy between the main sequence turn-off age and the white dwarf cooling age in the metal-rich open cluster NGC 6791, we compute a grid of white dwarf evolutionary sequences that incorporates for the first time…
The presence of a strong magnetic field is a feature common to a significant fraction of degenerate stars, yet little is understood about field origin and evolution. New observational constraints from volume-limited surveys point to a more…
We study the violent phase of the merger of massive binary white dwarf systems. Our aim is to characterize the conditions for explosive burning to occur, and identify a possible explosion mechanism of Type Ia supernovae. The primary…