Related papers: The White Dwarf Deficit in Open Clusters: Dynamica…
Although 25%-50% of white dwarfs (WDs) display evidence for remnant planetary systems, their orbital architectures and overall sizes remain unknown. Vibrant close-in (~1 Solar radius) circumstellar activity is detected at WDs spanning many…
Spectra have been obtained of 21 white dwarfs (WDs) in the direction of the young, rich open star cluster NGC 2099. This represents an appreciable fraction (>30%) of the cluster's total WD population. The mean derived mass of the sample is…
We study how structural properties of globular clusters and dwarf galaxies are linked to their orbits in the Milky Way halo. From the inner to the outer halo, orbital energy increases and stellar-systems gradually move out of internal…
We examine the claim by Oppenheimer et al. (2001) that the local halo density of white dwarfs is an order of magnitude higher than previously thought. As it stands, the observational data support the presence of a kinematically distinct…
A detailed analysis of halo white dwarf candidates is presented, which is based on model atmosphere fits to observed energy distributions built from photoelectric or photographic magnitudes. Most of the candidates identified in reduced…
(abridged) Observations of very high speeds among pulsars in the Galactic disk present a puzzle regarding neutron stars in globular clusters. The inferred characteristic speed of single pulsars in the Galaxy is $\sim 5-10$ times as large as…
In this paper, the first of a series, we study the stellar dynamical and evolutionary processes leading to the formation of compact binaries containing white dwarfs in dense globular clusters. We examine the processes leading to the…
Dense star clusters expand until their sizes are limited by the tidal field of their host galaxy. During this expansion phase the member stars evolve and lose mass. We show that for clusters with short initial relaxation time scales (<~100…
We present a series of simple, largely analytical models to compute the effects of disruption on the mass function of star clusters. Our calculations include evaporation by two-body relaxation and gravitational shocks and mass loss by…
It has long been suspected that metal polluted white dwarfs (types DAZ, DBZ, and DZ) and white dwarfs with dusty disks possess planetary systems, but a specific physical mechanism by which planetesimals are perturbed close to a white dwarf…
We investigate whether the recently-observed population of high-velocity white dwarfs can be derived from a population of binaries residing initially within the thin disk of the Galaxy. In particular we consider binaries where the primary…
Recent studies of white dwarfs in open clusters have provided new constraints on the initial - final mass relationship (IFMR) for main sequence stars with masses in the range 2.5 - 6.5 Mo. We re-evaluate the ensemble of data that determines…
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…
Recent observations suggest the existence of a white dwarf population in the Galactic halo, while others suggest that deuterium has been astrated in systems at high redshift and low metallicity. We propose that these observations could be…
Numerical simulations of the dynamical friction suffered by a star cluster near the Galactic center have been performed with a parallelized tree code. Gerhard (2001) has suggested that dynamical friction, which causes a cluster to lose…
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…
Recent observations of white dwarfs in globular clusters indicate that these stars may get a velocity kick during their time as giants. This velocity kick could originate naturally if the mass loss while on the asymptotic giant branch is…
We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12, which is the largest available white dwarf catalog to date, to study the evolution of the kinematical properties of the population of white dwarfs in the Galactic disc. We derive masses,…
Tidally limited star clusters are started on nearly circular orbits in the dark matter sub-halos present at high redshift and evolved with an n-body code augmented with gravitational interactions in the clusters. The tidally removed stars…
The third data release of Gaia introduced a large catalog of astrometric binaries, out of which about 3,200 are likely main-sequence stars with a white-dwarf (WD) companion. These binaries are typically found with orbital separations of ~1…