As they evolve, white dwarfs undergo major changes in surface composition, a phenomenon known as spectral evolution. In particular, some stars enter the cooling sequence with helium atmospheres (type DO) but eventually develop hydrogen atmospheres (type DA), most likely through the upward diffusion of residual hydrogen. Our empirical knowledge of this process remains scarce: the fractions of white dwarfs that are born helium rich and that experience the DO-to-DA transformation are poorly constrained. We tackle this issue by performing a detailed model-atmosphere investigation of 1806 hot ( ≥ 30,000 K) white dwarfs observed spectroscopically by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We first introduce our new generations of model atmospheres and theoretical cooling tracks, both appropriate for hot white dwarfs. We then present our spectroscopic analysis, from which we determine the atmospheric and stellar parameters of our sample objects. We find that ∼24% of white dwarfs begin their degenerate life as DO stars, among which ∼2/3 later become DA stars. We also infer that the DO-to-DA transition occurs at substantially different temperatures (75,000 K > > 30,000 K) for different objects, implying a broad range of hydrogen content within the DO population. Furthermore, we identify 127 hybrid white dwarfs, including 31 showing evidence of chemical stratification, and we discuss how these stars fit in our understanding of the spectral evolution. Finally, we uncover significant problems in the spectroscopic mass scale of very hot ( > 60,000 K) white dwarfs.
We present a critical review of the determination of fundamental parameters of white dwarfs discovered by the Gaia mission. We first reinterpret color-magnitude and color-color diagrams using photometric and spectroscopic information contained in the Montreal White Dwarf Database (MWDD), combined with synthetic magnitudes calculated from a self-consistent set of model atmospheres with various atmospheric compositions. The same models are then applied to measure the fundamental parameters of white dwarfs using the so-called photometric technique, which relies on the exquisite Gaia trigonometric parallax measurements, and photometric data from Pan-STARRS, SDSS, and Gaia. In particular, we discuss at length the systematic effects induced by these various photometric systems. We then study in great detail the mass distribution as a function of effective temperature for the white dwarfs spectroscopically identified in the MWDD, as well as for the white dwarf candidates discovered by Gaia. We pay particular attention to the assumed atmospheric chemical composition of cool, non-DA stars. We also briefly revisit the validity of the mass-radius relation for white dwarfs, and the recent discovery of the signature of crystallization in the Gaia color-magnitude diagram for DA white dwarfs. We finally present evidence that the core composition of most of these white dwarfs is, in bulk, a mixture of carbon and oxygen, an expected result from stellar evolution theory, but never empirically well established before.
We present a detailed spectroscopic and photometric analysis of 219 DA and DB white dwarfs for which trigonometric parallax measurements are available. Our aim is to compare the physical parameters derived from the spectroscopic and photometric techniques, and then to test the theoretical mass-radius relation for white dwarfs using these results. The agreement between spectroscopic and photometric parameters is found to be excellent, especially for effective temperatures, showing that our model atmospheres and fitting procedures provide an accurate, internally consistent analysis. Values of surface gravity and solid angle, obtained respectively from spectroscopy and photometry, are combined with parallax measurements in various ways to study the validity of the mass-radius relation from an empirical point of view. After a thorough examination of our results, we find that 73% and 92% of the white dwarfs are consistent within 1 and 2σ confidence levels, respectively, with the predictions of the mass-radius relation, thus providing strong support to the theory of stellar degeneracy. Our analysis also allows us to identify 15 stars that are better interpreted in terms of unresolved double degenerate binaries. Atmospheric parameters for both components in these binary systems are obtained using a novel approach. We further identify a few white dwarfs that are possibly composed of an iron core rather than a carbon/oxygen core, since they are consistent with Fe-core evolutionary models.
The continuous cooling of a white dwarf is punctuated by events that affect its cooling rate. The most significant of these events is the crystallization of its core, a phase transition that occurs once the C/O interior has cooled down below a critical temperature. This transition releases latent heat, as well as gravitational energy due to the redistribution of the C and O ions during solidification, thereby slowing down the evolution of the white dwarf. The unambiguous observational signature of core crystallization–a pile-up of objects in the cooling sequence–was recently reported. However, existing evolution models struggle to quantitatively reproduce this signature, casting doubt on their accuracy when used to measure the ages of stellar populations. The timing and amount of the energy released during crystallization depend on the exact form of the C/O phase diagram. Using the advanced Gibbs–Duhem integration method and state-of-the-art Monte Carlo simulations of the solid and liquid phases, we obtained a very accurate version of this phase diagram that allows a precise modeling of the phase transition. Despite this improvement, the magnitude of the crystallization pile-up remains underestimated by current evolution models. We conclude that latent heat release and O sedimentation alone are not sufficient to explain the observations, and that other unaccounted physical mechanisms, possibly 22Ne phase separation, play an important role.
We present an analysis of the newly identified μ Tau Association (MUTA) of young stars at ≃150 pc from the Sun that is part of the large Cas-Tau structure, coeval and comoving with the α Persei cluster. This association is also located in the vicinity of the Taurus-Auriga star-forming region and the Pleiades association, although it is unrelated to them. We identify more than 500 candidate members of MUTA using Gaia DR2 data and the BANYAN Σ tool, and we determine an age of 62 ± 7 Myr for its population based on an empirical comparison of its color–magnitude diagram sequence with those of other nearby young associations. The MUTA association is related to the Theia 160 group of Kounkel & Covey and corresponds to the e Tau group of Liu et al. It is also part of the Cas-Tau group of Blaauw. As part of this analysis, we introduce an iterative method based on spectral templates to perform an accurate correction of interstellar extinction of Gaia DR2 photometry, needed because of its wide photometric bandpasses. We show that the members of MUTA display an expected increased rate of stellar activity and faster rotation rates compared with older stars, and that literature measurements of the lithium equivalent width of nine G0- to K3-type members are consistent with our age determination. We show that the present-day mass function of MUTA is consistent with other known nearby young associations. We identify WD 0340+103 as a hot, massive white dwarf remnant of a B2 member that left its planetary nebula phase only 270,000 yr ago, posing an independent age constraint of Myr for MUTA, consistent with our isochrone age. This relatively large collection of comoving young stars near the Sun indicates that more work is required to unveil the full kinematic structure of the complex of young stars surrounding α Persei and Cas-Tau.
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