Stellar archaeology with Gaia: the Galactic white dwarf population

Barcells, M.; Barstow, M.; Bono, G.; Burleigh, M.; Casewell, S.; Dhillon, V.; Farihi, J.; Garcia-Berro, E.; Geier, S.; Gentile-Fusillo, N.; Gänsicke, B.; Hermes, J.; Hollands, M.; Istrate, A.; Knigge, C.; Manser, C.; Marsh, T.; Nelemans, G.A.; Pala, A.; Raddi, R.; Skillen, I.; Tauris, T.; Toloza, O.; Trager, S.; Tremblay, P.; Veras, D.; Werner, K.

research

Stellar archaeology with Gaia: the Galactic white dwarf population

Authors: M. Barcells
M. Barstow
G. Bono
M. Burleigh
S. Casewell
V. Dhillon
J. Farihi
E. Garcia-Berro
S. Geier
N. Gentile-Fusillo
B. Gänsicke
J. Hermes
M. Hollands
A. Istrate
C. Knigge
C. Manser
T. Marsh
G.A. Nelemans
A. Pala
R. Raddi
I. Skillen
T. Tauris
O. Toloza
S. Trager
P. Tremblay
D. Veras
K. Werner
Publication date: 1 March 2015
Publisher

Abstract

Gaia will identify several 1e5 white dwarfs, most of which will be in the solar neighborhood at distances of a few hundred parsecs. Ground-based optical follow-up spectroscopy of this sample of stellar remnants is essential to unlock the enormous scientific potential it holds for our understanding of stellar evolution, and the Galactic formation history of both stars and planets.Comment: Summary of a talk at the 'Multi-Object Spectroscopy in the Next Decade' conference in La Palma, March 2015, to be published in ASP Conference Series (editors Ian Skillen & Scott Trager