Related papers: New DA white dwarf evolutionary models and their p…
All single stars that are born with masses up to 8.5 - 10 $M_\odot$ will end their lives as a white dwarf (WD) star. In this evolutionary stage, WDs enter the cooling sequence, where the stars radiate away their thermal energy, and are…
Ultra-massive hydrogen-rich (DA spectral type) white dwarf (WD) stars ($M_{\star} > 1M_{\odot}$) coming from single-star evolution are expected to harbor cores made of $^{16}$O and $^{20}$Ne, resulting from semi-degenerate carbon burning…
One of the least understood aspects of white dwarf evolution is the process by which they are formed. We are aided, however, by the fact that many H- and He-deficient pre-white dwarfs (PWDs) are multiperiodic g-mode pulsators. Pulsations in…
Because of the large neutron excess of $^{22}$Ne, this isotope rapidly sediments in the interior of the white dwarfs. This process releases an additional amount of energy, thus delaying the cooling times of the white dwarf. This influences…
The pulsating DA white dwarfs (ZZ Ceti stars) are $g$-mode non-radial pulsators. Asteroseismology provides strong constraints on their global parameters and internal structure. Since all the DA white dwarfs falling in the ZZ Ceti…
We study the structure and evolution of white dwarf stars with helium-rich atmospheres (DB) in a self-consistent way with the predictions of time-dependent element diffusion. Our treatment of diffusion includes gravitational settling and…
Context. In 2020, a publication presented the first-light results for 18 known ZZ Ceti stars observed by the TESS space telescope during the first survey observations of the southern ecliptic hemisphere. However, in the meantime, new…
We report the discovery of the second pulsating hydrogen-rich (DA) white dwarf in the $Kepler$ field, KIC11911480. It was selected from the $Kepler$-INT Survey (KIS) on the basis of its colours and its variable nature was confirmed using…
We investigate dynamical interactions between turbulent convection and g-mode pulsations in ZZ Ceti variables (DAVs). Since our understanding of turbulence is rudimentary, we are compelled to settle for order of magnitude results. A key…
In the absence of a third dredge-up episode during the asymptotic giant branch phase, white dwarf models evolved from low-metallicity progenitors have a thick hydrogen envelope, which makes hydrogen shell burning be the most important…
To date, pulsational variability has been measured from nearly 70 DBVs and 500 DAVs, with only a fraction of these having been the subjects of asteroseismic analysis. One way to approach white dwarf asteroseismology is forward modeling,…
We demonstrate that plasmon neutrinos are the dominant form of energy loss in model white dwarf stars down to T_eff ~ 25,000 K, depending on the stellar mass. The lower end of this range overlaps the observed temperatures for the V777 Her…
Due to the short settling times of metals in DA white dwarf atmospheres, any white dwarfs with photospheric metals must be actively accreting. It is therefore natural to expect that the metals may not be deposited uniformly on the surface…
Realistic stellar models are essential to the forward modelling approach in asteroseismology. For practicality however, certain model assumptions are also required. For example, in the case of subdwarf B stars, one usually starts with…
An increasing number of white dwarf stars show atmospheric chemical composition polluted by heavy elements accreted from debris disk material. The existence of such debris disks strongly suggests the presence of one or more planet(s) whose…
White dwarfs are well studied objects. The relative simplicity of their physics allows to obtain very detailed models which can be ultimately compared with their observed properties. Among white dwarfs there is a specific class of stars,…
We summarize our findings on three cool ZZ Ceti type pulsating white dwarfs. We determined eight independent modes in HS 0733+4119, of which seven are new findings. For GD 154, we detected two new eigenmodes, and the recurrence of the…
Ultra-massive hydrogen-rich (DA) white dwarfs (WD) are expected to have a substantial portion of their cores in a crystalline state at the effective temperatures characterizing the ZZ Ceti instability strip, as a result of Coulomb…
We present photometry and spectroscopy for 27 pulsating hydrogen-atmosphere white dwarfs (DAVs, a.k.a. ZZ Ceti stars) observed by the Kepler space telescope up to K2 Campaign 8, an extensive compilation of observations with unprecedented…
In this paper we demonstrate how pulsating white dwarfs can be used as an astrophysical laboratory for empirically constraining convection in these stars. We do this using a technique for fitting observed non-sinusoidal light curves, which…