Related papers: The Physics of crystallizing white dwarfs
White dwarfs and neutron stars are stellar objects with masses comparable to that of our sun. However, as the endpoint stages of stellar evolution, these objects do not sustain any thermonuclear burning and therefore can no longer support…
We review empirical and theoretical findings concerning white dwarfs in Galactic globular clusters. Since their detection is a critical issue we describe in detail the various efforts to find white dwarfs in globular clusters. We then…
Context. White dwarfs can be used to study the structure and evolution of the Galaxy by analysing their luminosity function and initial mass function. Among them, the very cool white dwarfs provide the information for the early ages of each…
More than 40 years have passed since Ed Salpeter and others predicted that the carbon/oxygen cores of the coolest white dwarf stars in our Galaxy will theoretically crystallize. This effect has a dramatic impact on the calculated ages of…
In the course of their evolution, white-dwarf stars go through at least one phase of variability in which the global pulsations they undergo allow astronomers to peer into their interiors, this way making possible to shed light on their…
We calculate the expected white dwarf luminosity functions and discovery functions in photometric passbands, if these stellar remnants provide a substantial fraction of the sought Galactic dark matter, as suggested on various observational…
It was predicted more than 40 years ago that the cores of the coolest white dwarf stars should eventually crystallize. This effect is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in white dwarf cooling models, which are now routinely used to…
We study the effects of massive scalar-tensor theories on the internal properties, crystallization, and cooling process of white dwarf stars that might potentially solve observational tensions. We show that these modified gravity theories…
Taking advantage of the Gaia Data Release 2, recent studies have revisited the evolution of carbon-polluted white dwarfs (DQs) across a large range of effective temperatures. These analyses have clearly confirmed the existence of two…
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…
A number of cool white dwarfs with metal traces, of spectral types DAZ, DBZ, and DZ have been found to exhibit infrared excess radiation due to circumstellar dust. The origin of this dust is possibly a tidally disrupted asteroid that formed…
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…
The white dwarfs are promising laboratories for the study of cosmochronology and stellar evolution. Through observations of the pulsating white dwarfs, we can measure their internal structures and compositions, critical to understanding…
Thanks to their continuous cooling and relative simplicity, white dwarf stars are routinely used to measure the ages of stellar populations. The usefulness of white dwarfs as cosmochronometers depends on the availability of accurate cooling…
Gaia's exquisite parallax measurements allowed for the discovery and characterization of the Q branch in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, where massive C/O white dwarfs (WDs) pause their dimming due to energy released during…
Pulsating white dwarfs provide constraints to the evolution of progenitor stars. We revise He-burning stellar models, with particular attention to core convection and to its connection with the nuclear reactions powering energy generation…
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…
Although it a very narrow angle survey, the depth of the HDF results in its sampling a significant volume of the halo of our galaxy. Thus it is useful for the purposes of detecting (or placing upper limits on the distribution of)…
Brown dwarfs are natural clocks, cooling and dimming over time due to insufficient core fusion. They are also numerous and present in nearly all Galactic environments, making them potentially useful chronometers for a variety of Galactic…
Recently, the power of Gaia data has revealed an enhancement of high-mass white dwarfs (WDs) on the Hertzsprung--Russell diagram, called the Q branch. This branch is located at the high-mass end of the recently identified crystallization…