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Register a new userAsteroseismic test of rotational mixing in low-mass white dwarfs
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Added by
Alina G. Istrate MSc.
Publication date
2016
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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We exploit the recent discovery of pulsations in mixed-atmosphere (He/H), extremely low-mass white dwarf precursors (ELM proto-WDs) to test the proposition that rotational mixing is a fundamental process in the formation and evolution of low-mass helium core white dwarfs. Rotational mixing has been shown to be a mechanism able to compete efficiently against gravitational settling, thus accounting naturally for the presence of He, as well as traces of metals such as Mg and Ca, typically found in the atmospheres of ELM proto-WDs. Here we investigate whether rotational mixing can maintain a sufficient amount of He in the deeper driving region of the star, such that it can fuel, through HeII-HeIII ionization, the observed pulsations in this type of stars. Using state-of-the-art evolutionary models computed with MESA, we show that rotational mixing can indeed explain qualitatively the very existence and general properties of the known pulsating, mixed-atmosphere ELM proto-WDs. Moreover, such objects are very likely to pulsate again during their final WD cooling phase.
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We present the results of the asteroseismic analysis of the hydrogen-deficient white dwarf PG 0112+104 from the $Kepler$-2 field. Our seismic procedure using the forward method based on physically sound, static models, includes the new core parameterization leading us to reproduce the periods of this star near the precision of the observations. This new fit outperforms current state-of-the-art standards by order of magnitudes. We precisely establish the internal structure and unravel the inner C/O stratification of its core. This opens up interesting perspectives on better constraining key processes in stellar physics such as nuclear burning, convection, and mixing, that shape this stratification over time.
Extremely low-mass white dwarfs (ELM WDs) are helium WDs with a mass less than $sim$$0.3rm;M_odot$. Most ELM WDs are found in double degenerates (DDs) in the ELM Survey led by Brown and Kilic. These systems are supposed to be significant gravitational-wave sources in the mHz frequency. In this paper, we firstly analyzed the observational characteristics of ELM WDs and found that there are two distinct groups in the ELM WD mass and orbital period plane, indicating two different formation scenarios of such objects, i.e. a stable Roche lobe overflow channel (RL channel) and common envelope ejection channel (CE channel). We then systematically investigated the formation of ELM WDs in DDs by a combination of detailed binary evolution calculation and binary population synthesis. Our study shows that the majority of ELM WDs with mass less than $0.22rm;M_odot$ are formed from the RL channel. The most common progenitor mass in this way is in the range of $1.15-1.45rm;M_odot$ and the resulting ELM WDs have a peak around $0.18rm;M_odot$ when selection effects are taken into account, consistent with observations. The ELM WDs with a mass larger than $0.22rm;M_odot$ are more likely to be from the CE channel and have a peak of ELM WD mass around $0.25rm;M_odot$ which needs to be confirmed by future observations. By assuming a constant star formation rate of 2$rm;M_odot yr^{-1}$ for a Milky Way-like galaxy, the birth rate and local density are $5times10^{-4}rm;yr^{-1}$ and $1500rm;kpc^{-3}$, respectively, for DDs with an ELM WD mass less than $0.25rm;M_odot$.
Many low-mass white dwarfs are being discovered in the field of our galaxy and some of them exhibit $g$-mode pulsations, comprising the extremely low-mass variable (ELMV) stars class. Despite it is generally believed that these stars are characterized by thick H envelopes, from stellar evolution considerations, the existence of low-mass WDs with thin H envelopes is also possible. We have performed detailed asteroseismological fits to all the known ELMVs to search for a representative model by employing a set of fully evolutionary models that are representative of low-mass He-core white dwarf stars with a range of stellar masses $[0.1554-0.4352] M_{odot}$, effective temperatures $[6000-10000] $K, and also with a range of H envelope thicknesses $-5.8 lesssim log(M_{rm H}/M_{star}) lesssim -1.7$, hence expanding the space of parameters. We found that some of the stars under analysis are characterized by thick H envelopes, but others are better represented by models with thin H envelope.
Two of the possibilities for the formation of low-mass ($M_{star}lesssim 0.5,M_{odot}$) hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs are the occurrence of a very-late thermal pulse after the asymptotic giant-branch phase or a late helium-flash onset in an almost stripped core of a red giant star. We aim to asses the potential of asteroseismology to distinguish between the hot flasher and the very-late thermal pulse scenarios for the formation of low-mass hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs. We compute the evolution of low-mass hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs from the zero-age main sequence in the context of the two evolutionary scenarios. We explore the pulsation properties of the resulting models for effective temperatures characterizing the instability strip of pulsating helium-rich white dwarfs. We find that there are significant differences in the periods and in the period spacings associated with low radial-order ($klesssim 10$) gravity modes for white-dwarf models evolving within the instability strip of the hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs. The measurement of the period spacings for pulsation modes with periods shorter than $sim500,$s may be used to distinguish between the two scenarios. Moreover, period-to-period asteroseismic fits of low-mass pulsating hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs can help to determine their evolutionary history.
The influence of rotational mixing on the evolution and asteroseismic properties of solar-type stars is studied. Rotational mixing changes the global properties of a solar-type star with a significant increase of the effective temperature resulting in a shift of the evolutionary track to the blue part of the HR diagram. These differences are related to changes of the chemical composition, because rotational mixing counteracts the effects of atomic diffusion leading to larger helium surface abundances for rotating models than for non-rotating ones. Higher values of the large frequency separation are then found for rotating models than for non-rotating ones at the same evolutionary stage, because the increase of the effective temperature leads to a smaller radius and hence to an increase of the stellar mean density. Rotational mixing also has a considerable impact on the structure and chemical composition of the central stellar layers by bringing fresh hydrogen fuel to the core, thereby enhancing the main-sequence lifetime. The increase of the central hydrogen abundance together with the change of the chemical profiles in the central layers result in a significant increase of the values of the small frequency separations and of the ratio of the small to large separations for models including shellular rotation. This increase is clearly seen for models with the same age sharing the same initial parameters except for the inclusion of rotation as well as for models with the same global stellar parameters and in particular the same location in the HR diagram. By computing rotating models of solar-type stars including the effects of a dynamo that possibly occurs in the radiative zone, we find that the efficiency of rotational mixing is strongly reduced when the effects of magnetic fields are taken into account, in contrast to what happens in massive stars.
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