196 research outputs found
Contribution of brown dwarfs and white dwarfs to recent microlensing observations and to the halo mass budget
We examine the recent results of the MACHO collaboration towards the Large
Magellanic Cloud (Alcock et al. 1996) in terms of a halo brown dwarf or white
dwarf population. The possibility for most of the microlensing events to be due
to brown dwarfs is totally excluded by large-scale kinematic properties. The
white dwarf scenario is examined in details in the context of the most recent
white dwarf cooling theory (Segretain et al. 1994) which includes explicitely
the extra source of energy due to carbon-oxygen differentiation at
crystallization, and the subsequent Debye cooling. We show that the
observational constraints arising from the luminosity function of high-velocity
white dwarfs in the solar neighborhood and from the recent HST deep field
counts are consistent with a white dwarf contribution to the halo missing mass
as large as 50 %, provided i) an IMF strongly peaked around 1.7 Msol and ii) a
halo age older than 18 Gyr.Comment: 14 pages, 2 Postscript figures, to be published in Astrophysical
Journal Letters, minor revision in tex
Pulsations of massive ZZ Ceti stars with carbon/oxygen and oxygen/neon cores
We explore the adiabatic pulsational properties of massive white dwarf stars
with hydrogen-rich envelopes and oxygen/neon and carbon/oxygen cores. To this
end, we compute the cooling of massive white dwarf models for both core
compositions taking into account the evolutionary history of the progenitor
stars and the chemical evolution caused by time-dependent element diffusion. In
particular, for the oxygen/neon models, we adopt the chemical profile resulting
from repeated carbon-burning shell flashes expected in very massive white dwarf
progenitors. For carbon/oxygen white dwarfs we consider the chemical profiles
resulting from phase separation upon crystallization. For both compositions we
also take into account the effects of crystallization on the oscillation
eigenmodes. We find that the pulsational properties of oxygen/neon white dwarfs
are notably different from those made of carbon/oxygen, thus making
asteroseismological techniques a promising way to distinguish between both
types of stars and, hence, to obtain valuable information about their
progenitors.Comment: 11 pages, including 11 postscript figures. Accepted for publication
in Astronomy and Astrophysic
On the formation of neon-enriched donor stars in ultracompact X-ray binaries
We study the formation of neon-enriched donor stars in ultracompact X-ray
binaries (orbital periods P<80 min) and show that their progenitors have to be
low-mass (0.3 - 0.4 solar mass) ``hybrid'' white dwarfs (with CO cores and
thick helium mantles). Stable mass transfer is possible if in the initial
stages of mass exchange mass is lost from the system, taking away the specific
orbital angular momentum of the accretor (``isotropic re-emission''). The
excess of neon in the transferred matter is due to chemical fractionation of
the white dwarf which has to occur prior to the Roche lobe overflow by the
donor. The estimated lower limit of the orbital periods of the systems with
neon-enriched donors is close to 10 min. We show that the X-ray pulsar 4U
1626-67, which likely also has a neon-enriched companion, may have been formed
via accretion induced collapse of an oxygen-neon white dwarf accretor if the
donor was a hybrid white dwarf.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, uses aa.cls 5.1 version class file, accepted for
publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic
A white dwarf cooling age of 8 Gyr for NGC 6791 from physical separation processes
NGC 6791 is a well studied open cluster1 that it is so close to us that can
be imaged down to very faint luminosities. The main sequence turn-off age (~8
Gyr) and the age derived from the termination of the white dwarf cooling
sequence (~6 Gyr) are significantly different. One possible explanation is that
as white dwarfs cool, one of the ashes of helium burning, 22Ne, sinks in the
deep interior of these stars. At lower temperatures, white dwarfs are expected
to crystallise and phase separation of the main constituents of the core of a
typical white dwarf, 12C and 16O, is expected to occur. This sequence of events
is expected to introduce significant delays in the cooling times, but has not
hitherto been proven. Here we report that, as theoretically anticipated,
physical separation processes occur in the cores of white dwarfs, solving the
age discrepancy for NGC 6791.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, published in Natur
Evolution of white dwarf stars with high-metallicity progenitors: the role of 22Ne diffusion
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 the energy released by the processes of 22Ne sedimentation and of
carbon/oxygen phase separation upon crystallization. The grid covers the mass
range from 0.52 to 1.0 Msun, and it is appropriate for the study of white
dwarfs in metal-rich clusters. The evolutionary calculations are based on a
detailed and self-consistent treatment of the energy released from these two
processes, as well as on the employment of realistic carbon/oxygen profiles, of
relevance for an accurate evaluation of the energy released by carbon/oxygen
phase separation. We find that 22Ne sedimentation strongly delays the cooling
rate of white dwarfs stemming from progenitors with high metallicities at
moderate luminosities, whilst carbon/oxygen phase separation adds considerable
delays at low luminosities. Cooling times are sensitive to possible
uncertainties in the actual value of the diffusion coefficient of 22Ne.
Changing the diffusion coefficient by a factor of 2, leads to maximum age
differences of approx. 8-20% depending on the stellar mass. We find that the
magnitude of the delays resulting from chemical changes in the core is
consistent with the slow down in the white dwarf cooling rate that is required
to solve the age discrepancy in NGC 6791.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, to be published in The Astrophysical Journa
New phase diagrams for dense carbon-oxygen mixtures and white dwarf evolution
Cool white dwarfs are reliable and independent stellar chronometers. The most
common white dwarfs have carbon-oxygen dense cores. Consequently, the cooling
ages of very cool white dwarfs sensitively depend on the adopted phase diagram
of the carbon-oxygen binary mixture. A new phase diagram of dense carbon-oxygen
mixtures appropriate for white dwarf interiors has been recently obtained using
direct molecular dynamics simulations. In this paper, we explore the
consequences of this phase diagram in the evolution of cool white dwarfs. To do
this we employ a detailed stellar evolutionary code and accurate initial white
dwarf configurations, derived from the full evolution of progenitor stars. We
use two different phase diagrams, that of Horowitz et al. (2010), which
presents an azeotrope, and the phase diagram of Segretain & Chabrier (1993),
which is of the spindle form. We computed the evolution of 0.593 and 0.878M_sun
white dwarf models during the crystallization phase, and we found that the
energy released by carbon-oxygen phase separation is smaller when the new phase
diagram of Horowitz et al. (2010) is used. This translates into time delays
that are on average a factor about 2 smaller than those obtained when the phase
diagram of Segretain & Chabrier (1993) is employed. Our results have important
implications for white dwarf cosmochronology, because the cooling ages of very
old white dwarfs are different for the two phase diagrams. This may have a
noticeable impact on the age determinations of very old globular clusters, for
which the white dwarf color-magnitude diagram provides an independent way of
estimating their age.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
The Puzzling White Dwarf Cooling Sequence in NGC6791: A Simple Solution
In this paper we demonstrate that the puzzling bright peak in the luminosity
function of the white dwarf (WD) cooling sequence of NGC6791 can be naturally
accounted for if ~34% of the observed WDs are WD+WD binary systems.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. Accepted (April 9th 2008) on ApJ Lette
Neutron rich matter, neutron stars, and their crusts
Neutron rich matter is at the heart of many fundamental questions in Nuclear
Physics and Astrophysics. What are the high density phases of QCD? Where did
the chemical elements come from? What is the structure of many compact and
energetic objects in the heavens, and what determines their electromagnetic,
neutrino, and gravitational-wave radiations? Moreover, neutron rich matter is
being studied with an extraordinary variety of new tools such as Facility for
Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave
Observatory (LIGO). We describe the Lead Radius Experiment (PREX) that is using
parity violation to measure the neutron radius in 208Pb. This has important
implications for neutron stars and their crusts. Using large scale molecular
dynamics, we model the formation of solids in both white dwarfs and neutron
stars. We find neutron star crust to be the strongest material known, some 10
billion times stronger than steel. It can support mountains on rotating neutron
stars large enough to generate detectable gravitational waves. Finally, we
describe a new equation of state for supernova and neutron star merger
simulations based on the Virial expansion at low densities, and large scale
relativistic mean field calculations.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, Plenary talk International Nuclear Physics
Conference 2010, Vancouver, C
Mass transfer dynamics in double degenerate binary systems
We present a numerical study of the mass transfer dynamics prior to the
gravitational wave-driven merger of a double white dwarf system. Recently,
there has been some discussion about the dynamics of these last stages,
different methods seemed to provide qualitatively different results. While
earlier SPH simulations indicated a very quick disruption of the binary on
roughly the orbital time scale, more recent grid-based calculations find
long-lived mass transfer for many orbital periods. Here we demonstrate how
sensitive the dynamics of this last stage is to the exact initial conditions.
We show that, after a careful preparation of the initial conditions, the
reportedly short-lived systems undergo mass transfer for many dozens of orbits.
The reported numbers of orbits are resolution-biased and therefore represent
only lower limits to what is realized in nature. Nevertheless, the study shows
convincingly the convergence of different methods to very similar results.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, for associated movie files, see
http://pandora.jacobs-university.de/~mdan/WD_coalescences.htm, to appear in
Journal of Physics Conference Proceedings for the 16th European White Dwarf
Worksho
The evolution of white dwarfs with a varying gravitational constant
Within the theoretical framework of some modern unification theories the
constants of nature are functions of cosmological time. White dwarfs offer the
possibility of testing a possible variation of G and, thus, to place
constraints to these theories. We present full white dwarf evolutionary
calculations in the case that G decreases with time. White dwarf evolution is
computed in a self-consistent way, including the most up-to-date physical
inputs, non-gray model atmospheres and a detailed core chemical composition
that results from the calculation of the full evolution of progenitor stars. We
find that the mechanical structure and the energy balance of white dwarfs are
strongly modified by the presence of a varying G. In particular, for certain
values of the rate of change of G, the evolution of cool white dwarfs is
markedly affected. The impact of a varying G is more notorious in the case of
more massive white dwarfs. In view of the recent results reporting that a very
accurate white dwarf cooling age can be derived for the old and metal-rich open
cluster NGC 6791, our study suggests that this cluster could be a potential
target to constrain or detect a ypothetical secular variation of G.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&
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