178 research outputs found
Crystallization of Carbon Oxygen Mixtures in White Dwarf Stars
We determine the phase diagram for dense carbon/ oxygen mixtures in White
Dwarf (WD) star interiors using molecular dynamics simulations involving liquid
and solid phases. Our phase diagram agrees well with predictions from Ogata et
al. and Medin and Cumming and gives lower melting temperatures than Segretain
et al. Observations of WD crystallization in the globular cluster NGC 6397 by
Winget et al. suggest that the melting temperature of WD cores is close to that
for pure carbon. If this is true, our phase diagram implies that the central
oxygen abundance in these stars is less than about 60%. This constraint, along
with assumptions about convection in stellar evolution models, limits the
effective S factor for the C()O reaction to
S_{300} <= 170 keV barns.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett. in pres
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
Diffusion of Neon in White Dwarf Stars
Sedimentation of the neutron rich isotope Ne may be an important
source of gravitational energy during the cooling of white dwarf stars. This
depends on the diffusion constant for Ne in strongly coupled plasma
mixtures. We calculate self-diffusion constants from molecular dynamics
simulations of carbon, oxygen, and neon mixtures. We find that in a
mixture does not differ greatly from earlier one component plasma results. For
strong coupling (coulomb parameter few), has a modest
dependence on the charge of the ion species, .
However depends more strongly on for weak coupling (smaller
). We conclude that the self-diffusion constant for
Ne in carbon, oxygen, and neon plasma mixtures is accurately known so
that uncertainties in should be unimportant for simulations of
white dwarf cooling.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, minor changes, Phys. Rev. E in pres
Reaching the End of the White Dwarf Cooling Sequence in NGC 6791
We present new observations of the white dwarf sequence of the old open
cluster NGC 6791. The brighter peak previously observed in the white dwarf
luminosity function (WDLF) is now better delineated, and the second, fainter
peak that we suggested earlier is now confirmed. A careful study suggests that
we have reached the end of the white dwarf sequence. The WDs that create the
two peaks in the WDLF show a significant turn to the blue in the
color-magnitude diagram. The discrepancy between the age from the WDs and that
from the main sequence turnoff remains, and we have an additional puzzle in the
second peak in the WDLF. Canonical WD models seem to fail --at least at
~25%-level-- in reproducing the age of clusters of this metallicity. We discuss
briefly possible ways of arriving at a theoretical understanding of the WDLF.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures (4 in low resolution), 1 table. Accepted (2007
December 19) on Ap
Gravitational Settling of ^{22}Ne in Liquid White Dwarf Interiors--Cooling and Seismological Effects
We assess the impact of the trace element ^{22}Ne on the cooling and
seismology of a liquid C/O white dwarf (WD). Due to this elements' neutron
excess, it sinks towards the interior as the liquid WD cools. The subsequent
gravitational energy released slows the cooling of the WD by 0.25--1.6 Gyrs by
the time it has completely crystallized, depending on the WD mass and the
adopted sedimentation rate. The effects will make massive WDs or those in metal
rich clusters (such as NGC 6791) appear younger than their true age. Our
diffusion calculations show that the ^{22}Ne mass fraction in the crystallized
core actually increases outwards. The stability of this configuration has not
yet been determined. In the liquid state, the settled ^{22}Ne enhances the
internal buoyancy of the interior and changes the periods of the high radial
order g-modes by approximately 1%. Though a small adjustment, this level of
change far exceeds the accuracy of the period measurements. A full assessment
and comparison of mode frequencies for specific WDs should help constrain the
still uncertain ^{22}Ne diffusion coefficient for the liquid interior.Comment: 26 pages (11 text pages with 15 figures); to appear in The
Astrophysical Journa
Phase separation in the crust of accreting neutron stars
Nucleosynthesis, on the surface of accreting neutron stars, produces a range
of chemical elements. We perform molecular dynamics simulations of
crystallization to see how this complex composition forms new neutron star
crust. We find chemical separation, with the liquid ocean phase greatly
enriched in low atomic number elements compared to the solid crust. This phase
separation should change many crust properties such as the thermal conductivity
and shear modulus. The concentration of carbon, if present, is enriched in the
ocean. This may allow unstable thermonuclear burning of the carbon and help
explain the ignition of the very energetic explosions known as superbursts.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, minor changes, Physical Review E in pres
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
Evolutionary calculations of phase separation in crystallizing white dwarf stars
We present an exploration of the significance of Carbon/Oxygen phase
separation in white dwarf stars in the context of self-consistent evolutionary
calculations. Because phase separation can potentially increase the calculated
ages of the oldest white dwarfs, it can affect the age of the Galactic disk as
derived from the downturn in the white dwarf luminosity function. We find that
the largest possible increase in ages due to phase separation is 1.5 Gyr, with
a most likely value of approximately 0.6 Gyr, depending on the parameters of
our white dwarf models.
The most important factors influencing the size of this delay are the total
stellar mass, the initial composition profile, and the phase diagram assumed
for crystallization. We find a maximum age delay in models with masses of 0.6
solar masses, which is near the peak in the observed white dwarf mass
distribution. We find that varying the opacities (via the metallicity) has
little effect on the calculated age delays.
In the context of Galactic evolution, age estimates for the oldest Galactic
globular clusters range from 11.5 to 16 Gyr, and depend on a variety of
parameters. In addition, a 4 to 6 Gyr delay is expected between the formation
of the globular clusters and that of the Galactic thin disk, while the observed
white dwarf luminosity function gives an age estimate for the thin disk of 9.5
+/-1.0 Gyr, without including the effect of phase separation. Using the above
numbers, we see that phase separation could add between 0 to 3 Gyr to the white
dwarf ages and still be consistent with the overall picture of Galaxy
formation. Our calculated maximum value of 1.5 Gyr fits within these bounds, as
does our best guess value of 0.6 Gyr.Comment: 13 total pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journal on May 25, 199
The Physics of Crystallization from Globular Cluster White Dwarf Stars in NGC 6397
We explore the physics of crystallization in the deep interiors of white
dwarf stars using the color-magnitude diagram and luminosity function
constructed from proper motion cleaned Hubble Space Telescope photometry of the
globular cluster NGC 6397. We demonstrate that the data are consistent with the
theory of crystallization of the ions in the interior of white dwarf stars and
provide the first empirical evidence that the phase transition is first order:
latent heat is released in the process of crystallization as predicted by van
Horn (1968). We outline how this data can be used to observationally constrain
the value of Gamma = E_{Coulomb}/E_{thermal} near the onset of crystallization,
the central carbon/oxygen abundance, and the importance of phase separation.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journal Letter
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