Radio pulsars with millisecond spin periods are thought to have been spun up by the transfer of matter and angular momentum from a low-mass companion star during an x-ray-emitting phase. The spin periods of the neutron stars in several such low-mass x-ray binary (LMXB) systems have been shown to be in the millisecond regime, but no radio pulsations have been detected. Here we report on detection and follow-up observations of a nearby radio millisecond pulsar (MSP) in a circular binary orbit with an optically identified companion star. Optical observations indicate that an accretion disk was present in this system within the past decade. Our optical data show no evidence that one exists today, suggesting that the radio MSP has turned on after a recent LMXB phase.

We present optical and ultraviolet spectra of the first electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave (GW) source, the binary neutron star merger GW170817. Spectra were obtained nightly between 1.5 and 9.5 days post-merger, using the SOAR and Magellan telescopes; the UV spectrum was obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope at 5.5 days. Our data reveal a rapidly-fading blue component (T ≈ 5500 K at 1.5 days) that quickly reddens; spectra later than 4.5 days peak beyond the optical regime. The spectra are mostly featureless, although we identify a possible weak emission line at ∼ 7900 Å at t 4.5 days. The colours, rapid evolution and featureless spectrum are consistent with a "blue" kilonova from polar ejecta comprised mainly of light r-process nuclei with atomic mass number A 140. This indicates a sight-line within θ obs 45 • of the orbital axis. Comparison to models suggests ∼ 0.03 M of blue ejecta, with a velocity of ∼ 0.3c. The required lanthanide fraction is ∼ 10 −4 , but this drops to < 10 −5 in the outermost ejecta. The large velocities point to a dynamical origin, rather than a disk wind, for this blue component, suggesting that both binary constituents are neutron stars (as opposed to a binary consisting of a neutron star and a black hole). For dynamical ejecta, the high mass favors a small neutron star radius of 12 km. This mass also supports the idea that neutron star mergers are a major contributor to r-process nucleosynthesis. arXiv:1710.05456v1 [astro-ph.HE] 16 Oct 2017 2 NICHOLL ET AL.

We present photometry and spectroscopy for 27 pulsating hydrogen-atmosphere white dwarfs (DAVs, a.k.a. ZZ Ceti stars) observed by the Kepler space telescope up to K2 Campaign 8, an extensive compilation of observations with unprecedented duration (>75 days) and duty cycle (>90%). The space-based photometry reveals pulsation properties previously inaccessible to ground-based observations. We observe a sharp dichotomy in oscillation mode linewidths at roughly 800 s, such that white dwarf pulsations with periods exceeding 800 s have substantially broader mode linewidths, more reminiscent of a damped harmonic oscillator than a heat-driven pulsator. Extended Kepler coverage also permits extensive mode identification: We identify the spherical degree of 61 out of 154 unique radial orders, providing direct constraints of the rotation period for 20 of these 27 DAVs, more than doubling the number of white dwarfs with rotation periods determined via asteroseismology. We also obtain spectroscopy from 4m-class telescopes for all DAVs with Kepler photometry. Using these homogeneously analyzed spectra we estimate the overall mass of all 27 DAVs, which allows us to measure white dwarf rotation as a function of mass, constraining the endpoints of angular momentum in low-and intermediate-mass stars. We find that 0.51 − 0.73 M ⊙ white dwarfs, which evolved from 1.7 − 3.0M ⊙ ZAMS progenitors, have a mean rotation period of 35 hr with a standard deviation of 28 hr, with notable exceptions for higher-mass white dwarfs. Finally, we announce an online repository for our Kepler data and follow-up spectroscopy, which we collect at k2wd.org.

We present an analysis of 1023 DBZ/DZ(A) and 319 DQ white dwarf stars taken from the Montreal White Dwarf Database. This represents a significant increase over the previous comprehensive studies on these types of objects. We use new trigonometric parallax measurements from the Gaia second data release, together with photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Pan-STARRS, Gaia, or BVRI from the literature, which allow the determination of the mass for the majority of the objects in our sample. We use the photometric and spectroscopic techniques with our recently improved model atmospheres code, which include high-density effects, to accurately determine the effective temperature, surface gravity, and heavy-element abundances for each object. We study the abundance of hydrogen in DBZ/DZ white dwarfs and the properties of the accreted planetesimals. We explore the nature of the second sequence of DQ stars using proper motions from Gaia and highlight evidence of crystallization in massive DQ stars. We also present mass distributions for both spectral types. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings in the context of the spectral evolution of white dwarfs and provide the atmospheric parameters for each star.