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Register a new userA Photometric and Spectroscopic Investigation of the DB White Dwarf Population using SDSS and Gaia Data
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Cynthia Genest-Beaulieu
Publication date
2019
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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We present a comprehensive analysis of DB white dwarfs drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, based on model fits to $ugriz$ photometry and medium resolution spectroscopy from the SDSS. We also take advantage of the exquisite trigonometric parallax measurements recently obtained by the Gaia mission. Using the so-called photometric and spectroscopic techniques, we measure the atmospheric and physical parameters of each object in our sample ($T_{rm eff}$, $log g$, H/He, Ca/He, $R$, $M$), and compare the values obtained from both techniques in order to assess the precision and accuracy of each method. We then explore in great detail the surface gravity, stellar mass, and hydrogen abundance distributions of DB white dwarfs as a function of effective temperature. We present some clear evidence for a large population of unresolved double degenerate binaries composed of DB+DB and even DB+DA white dwarfs. In the light of our results, we finally discuss the spectral evolution of DB white dwarfs, in particular the evolution of the DB-to-DA ratio as a function of $T_{rm eff}$, and we revisit the question of the origin of hydrogen in DBA white dwarfs.
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We present a detailed spectroscopic and photometric analysis of DA and DB white dwarfs drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with trigonometric parallax measurements available from the Gaia mission. The temperature and mass scales obtained from fits to $ugriz$ photometry appear reasonable for both DA and DB stars, with almost identical mean masses of $langle M rangle = 0.617~M_odot$ and $0.620~M_odot$, respectively. The comparison with similar results obtained from spectroscopy reveals several problems with our model spectra for both pure hydrogen and pure helium compositions. In particular, we find that the spectroscopic temperatures of DA stars exceed the photometric values by $sim$10% above $T_{rm eff}sim14,000$~K, while for DB white dwarfs, we observe large differences between photometric and spectroscopic masses below $T_{rm eff}sim16,000$~K. We attribute these discrepancies to the inaccurate treatment of Stark and van der Waals broadening in our model spectra, respectively. Despite these problems, the mean masses derived from spectroscopy --- $langle M rangle = 0.615~M_odot$ and $0.625~M_odot$ for the DA and DB stars, respectively --- agree extremely well with those obtained from photometry. Our analysis also reveals the presence of several unresolved double degenerate binaries, including DA+DA, DB+DB, DA+DB, and even DA+DC systems. We finally take advantage of the Gaia parallaxes to test the theoretical mass-radius relation for white dwarfs. We find that 65% of the white dwarfs are consistent within the 1$sigma$ confidence level with the predictions of the mass-radius relation, thus providing strong support to the theory of stellar degeneracy.
We report on a comparison of spectroscopic analyses for hydrogen (DA) and helium atmosphere (DB) white dwarfs with Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) parallaxes and photometry. We assume a reddening law and a mass-radius relation to connect the effective temperatures (Teff) and surface gravities (log g) to masses and radii. This allows the comparison of two largely independent sets of fundamental parameters for 7039 DA and 521 DB stars with high-quality observations. This subset of the Gaia white dwarf sample is large enough to detect systematic trends in the derived parameters. We find that spectroscopic and photometric parameters generally agree within uncertainties when the expectation of a single star is verified. Gaia allows the identification of a small systematic offset in the temperature scale between the two techniques, as well as confirming a small residual high-mass bump in the DA mass distribution around 11,000-13,000 K. This assessment of the accuracy of white dwarf fundamental parameters derived from Gaia is a first step in understanding systematic effects in related astrophysical applications such as the derivation of the local stellar formation history, initial-to-final mass relation, and statistics of evolved planetary systems.
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.
The spectroscopic catalogue of white dwarf-main sequence (WDMS) binaries from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is the largest and most homogeneous sample of compact binary stars currently known. However, because of selection effects, the current sample is strongly biased against systems containing cool white dwarfs and/or early type companions, which are predicted to dominate the intrinsic population. In this study we present colour selection criteria that combines optical (ugriz DR8 SDSS) plus infrared (yjhk DR9 UKIRT Infrared Sky Survey (UKIDSS), JHK Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and/or w1w2 Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)) magnitudes to select 3419 photometric candidates of harbouring cool white dwarfs and/or dominant (M dwarf) companions. We demonstrate that 84 per cent of our selected candidates are very likely genuine WDMS binaries, and that the white dwarf effective temperatures and secondary star spectral types of 71 per cent of our selected sources are expected to be below <~10000-15000K, and concentrated at ~M2-3, respectively. We also present an updated version of the spectroscopic SDSS WDMS binary catalogue, which incorporates 47 new systems from SDSS DR8. The bulk of the DR8 spectroscopy is made up of main-sequence stars and red giants that were targeted as part of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) Survey, therefore the number of new spectroscopic WDMS binaries in DR8 is very small compared to previous SDSS data releases. Despite their low number, DR8 WDMS binaries are found to be dominated by systems containing cool white dwarfs and therefore represent an important addition to the spectroscopic sample. The updated SDSS DR8 spectroscopic catalogue of WDMS binaries consists of 2316 systems.
We determined the fundamental properties of HD 140283 by obtaining new interferometric and spectroscopic measurements and combining them with photometry from the literature. The interferometric measurements were obtained using the visible interferometer VEGA on the CHARA array and we determined a 1D limb-darkened angular diameter of 0.353 +/- 0.013 milliarcseconds. Using photometry from the literature we derived the bolometric flux with two solutions: a zero-reddening one of Fbol = 3.890 +/- 0.066 1E-8 erg/s/cm2 and a solution with a maximum of Av = 0.1 mag, Fbol= 4.220 +/- 0.067 1E-8 erg/s/cm2. The interferometric Teff is thus 5534 +/- 103 K or 5647 +/- 105 K and its radius is R = 2.21 +/- 0.08 Rsol. Spectroscopic measurements of HD140283 were obtained using HARPS, NARVAL, and UVES and a 1D LTE analysis of H-alpha line wings yields Teff(Halpha) = 5626 +/- 75 K. Using fine-tuned stellar models including diffusion of elements we then determined the mass M and age t of HD140283. Once the metallicity has been fixed, the age of the star depends on M, initial helium abundance Yi and mixing-length parameter alpha, only two of which are independent. We need to adjust alpha to much lower values than the solar one (~2) in order to fit the observations, and if Av = 0.0 mag then 0.5 < alpha < 1. We give an equation to estimate t from M, Yi (alpha) and Av. Establishing a reference alpha = 1.00 and adopting Yi = 0.245 we derive a mass and age of HD140283: M = 0.780 +/- 0.010 Msol and t = 13.7 +/- 0.7 Gyr (Av = 0.0) or M = 0.805 +/- 0.010 Msol and t = 12.2 +/- 0.6 Gyr (Av=0.1 mag). Our stellar models yield an initial metallicity of [Z/X]i = -1.70 and logg = 3.65 +/- 0.03. Asteroseismic observations are critical for overcoming limitations in our results.
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