Related papers: An Asteroseismic Test of Diffusion Theory
White dwarfs are dense, cooling stellar embers consisting mostly of carbon and oxygen, or oxygen and neon (with a few percent carbon) at higher initial stellar masses. These stellar cores are enveloped by a shell of helium which in turn is…
We present a comprehensive study of Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) spectra (912-1190 A) of two members of the PG1159 spectral class, which consists of hydrogen-deficient (pre-) white dwarfs with effective temperatures in the…
We present a series of systematic abundance measurements for 89 hot DA white dwarfs drawn from the FUSE observation archive. These stars span the temperature range ~ 20000-70000K, and form the largest sample to-date, exceeding our earlier…
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…
Many pulsating low-mass white-dwarf stars have been detected in the last years in the field of our Galaxy. Given that some of them exhibit multiperiodic variation of brightness, it is possible to probe their interiors through…
PG1159 stars are hot hydrogen-deficient post-AGB stars with effective temperatures within a range from 75000 K up to 200000 K. These stars are probably the result of a late helium-shell flash that had occurred during their first descent…
White dwarfs with infrared excess emission provide a window into the late stages of stellar evolution and the dynamics of circumstellar environments. Using data from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), we…
Traces of photospheric hydrogen are detected in at least half of all white dwarfs with helium-dominated atmospheres through the presence of H alpha in high-quality optical spectroscopy. Previous studies have noted significant discrepancies…
Asteroseismology is a powerful tool to infer the evolutionary status and chemical stratification of white dwarf (WD) stars, and to explore the physical processes that lead to their formation. This is particularly true for the variable…
Hot subdwarf stars with masses above $0.8 M_\odot$ ascend the helium giant branch after the end of core helium burning, before entering the white dwarf cooling track or exploding as type Ib/c supernovae. Such massive helium stars are…
We explore different evolutionary scenarios to explain the helium deficiency observed in H1504+65, the most massive known PG1159 star. We concentrate mainly on the possibility that this star could be the result of mass loss shortly after…
A number of so-called ultra-cool white dwarfs have been detected in different surveys so far. However, based on anecdotal evidence it is believed that most or all of these ultra-cool white dwarfs are low-mass products of binary evolution…
[Abridged] We present new HST FUV spectroscopy of 24 hot evolved stars in NGC2808, a massive globular cluster with a large population of "blue-hook" (BHk) stars. The BHk stars are found in UV color-magnitude diagrams of the most massive…
We report on the analysis of high-resolution optical spectra for 77 subdwarf B (sdB) stars from the ESO Supernova Ia Progenitor Survey. Effective temperature, surface gravity, and photospheric helium abundance are determined simultaneously…
We present the first analysis of an EUV selected sample of hot DA white dwarfs using a new type of atmospheric models. These models take into account the interplay between gravitational settling and radiative acceleration to predict the…
The present letter is aimed at exploring the influence of overshooting during the central helium burning in pre-white dwarf progenitors on the pulsational properties of PG1159 stars. To this end we follow the complete evolution an…
We present a detailed analysis of all the known Hot DQ white dwarfs in the Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) recently found to have carbon dominated atmospheres. Our spectroscopic and photometric analysis reveals…
The present work is designed to explore the evolutionary and pulsational properties of low-mass white dwarfs with carbon/oxygen cores. In particular, we follow the evolution of a 0.33 Msun white dwarf remnant in a self-consistent way with…
We report the discovery, in an Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) short wavelength spectrum, of an unresolved hot white dwarf companion to the 5th-magnitude B5Vp star HR2875. This is the first time that a non-interacting white dwarf$+$ B…
We present follow-up spectroscopy of 711 white dwarfs within 100 pc, and present a detailed model atmosphere analysis of the 100 pc white dwarf sample in the SDSS footprint. Our spectroscopic follow-up is complete for 83% of the white…