MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST) III. The White Dwarf Cooling Sequence
Abstract
We present a substantial update to the MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST) library, extending the MIST model grids and isochrones down the white dwarf (WD) cooling sequence with realistic physics for WD cooling timescales. This work provides a large grid of MESA models for carbon-oxygen core WDs with hydrogen atmospheres (spectral type DA/DC), descended from full prior stellar evolution calculations. The model tracks, isochrones, and WD cooling timescale contours are available on the MIST project website and at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15242046. Our WD models provide a very large, publicly available grid with detailed physics for WD cooling timescales: realistic interior and envelope compositions, with element diffusion and heavy-element sedimentation, nuclear burning at the base of the WD hydrogen envelope, core crystallization, and C/O phase separation. As a large grid of open-source stellar evolution models, these WD models provide both out-of-the-box model tracks for comparison with observations and a framework for building further WD models to investigate variations in WD physics.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.21717,
title = {MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST) III. The White Dwarf Cooling Sequence},
author = {Evan B. Bauer and Aaron Dotter and Charlie Conroy and Tim Cunningham and Minjung Park and Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.21717},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
13 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS. White dwarf cooling data files available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15242046