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Register a new userSearching for white dwarfs candidates in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data
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Miros{l}aw Nale.zyty
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Large amount of observational spectroscopic data are recently available from different observational projects, like Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Its become more urgent to identify white dwarfs stars based on data itself i.e. without modelling white dwarf atmospheres. In particular, existing methods of white dwarfs identification presented in Kleinman et al. (2004) and in Eisenstein et al. (2006) did not allow to find all the white dwarfs in examined data. We intend to test various criteria of searching for white dwarf candidates, based on photometric and spectral features.
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An initial assessment is made of white dwarf and hot subdwarf stars observed in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In a small area of sky (190 square degrees), observed much like the full survey will be, 269 white dwarfs and 56 hot subdwarfs are identified spectroscopically where only 44 white dwarfs and 5 hot subdwarfs were known previously. Most are ordinary DA (hydrogen atmosphere) and DB (helium) types. In addition, in the full survey to date, a number of WDs have been found with uncommon spectral types. Among these are blue DQ stars displaying lines of atomic carbon; red DQ stars showing molecular bands of C_2 with a wide variety of strengths; DZ stars where Ca and occasionally Mg, Na, and/or Fe lines are detected; and magnetic WDs with a wide range of magnetic field strengths in DA, DB, DQ, and (probably) DZ spectral types. Photometry alone allows identification of stars hotter than 12000 K, and the density of these stars for 15<g<20 is found to be ~2.2 deg^{-2} at Galactic latitudes 29-62 deg. Spectra are obtained for roughly half of these hot stars. The spectra show that, for 15<g<17, 40% of hot stars are WDs and the fraction of WDs rises to ~90% at g=20. The remainder are hot sdB and sdO stars.
We present ugriz photometry and optical spectroscopy for 28 DB and DO white dwarfs with temperatures between 28,000K and 45,000K. About 10 of these are particularly well-observed; the remainder are candidates. These are the hottest DB stars yet found, and they populate the DB gap between the hotter DO stars and the familiar DB stars cooler than 30,000K. Nevertheless, after carefully matching the survey volumes, we find that the ratio of DA stars to DB/DO stars is a factor of 2.5 larger at 30,000 K than at 20,000 K, suggesting that the DB gap is indeed deficient and that some kind of atmospheric transformation takes place in roughly 10% of DA stars as they cool from 30,000 K to 20,000 K.
We identify seven new ultracool white dwarfs discovered in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The SDSS photometry, spectra, and proper motions are presented, and additional BVRI data are given for these and other previously discovered ultracool white dwarfs. The observed colors span a remarkably wide range, qualitatively similar to colors predicted by models for very cool white dwarfs. One of the new stars (SDSS J1251+44) exhibits strong collision-induced absorption (CIA) in its spectra, while the spectra and colors of the other six are consistent with mild CIA. Another of the new discoveries (SDSS J2239+00A) is part of a binary system -- its companion is also a cool white dwarf, and other data indicate that the companion exhibits an infrared flux deficiency, making this the first binary system composed of two CIA white dwarfs. A third discovery (SDSS J0310-00) has weak Balmer emission lines. The proper motions of all seven stars are consistent with membership in the disk or thick disk.
Among the spectroscopically identified white dwarfs, a fraction smaller than 2% have spectra dominated by carbon lines, mainly molecular C2, but also in a smaller group by CI and CII lines. These are together called DQ white dwarfs. We want to derive atmospheric parameters Teff,log g, and carbon abundances for a large sample of these stars and discuss implications for their spectral evolution. Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra and ugriz photometry were used, together with GAIA Data Release 2 parallaxes and G band photometry. These were fitted to synthetic spectra and theoretical photometry derived from model atmospheres. We found that the DQs hotter than Teff ~10000 K have masses ~0.4 Msun larger than the cooler ones, which have masses typical for the majority of white dwarfs, ~0.6 Msun. A significant fraction of the hotter objects with Teff > 14500 K have atmospheres dominated by carbon.
White dwarfs with helium-dominated atmospheres comprise approximately 20% of all white dwarfs. Among the open questions are the total masses and the origin of the hydrogen traces observed in a large number and the nature of the deficit of DBs in the range from 30000 - 45000K. We use the largest-ever sample (by a factor of 10) provided by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to study these questions. The photometric and spectroscopic data of 1107 helium-rich objects from the SDSS are analyzed using theoretical model atmospheres. Along with the effective temperature and surface gravity, we also determine hydrogen and calcium abundances or upper limits for all objects. The atmosphere models are extended with envelope calculations to determine the extent of the helium convection zones and thus the total amount of hydrogen and calcium present. When accounting for problems in determining surface gravities at low Teff, we find an average mass for helium-dominated white dwarfs of 0.606+-0.004 Msun, which is very similar to the latest determinations for DAs. There are 32% of the sample with detected hydrogen, but this increases to 75% if only the objects with the highest signal-to-noise ratios are considered. In addition, 10-12% show traces of calcium, which must come from an external source. The interstellar medium (ISM) is ruled out by the fact that all polluted objects show a Ca/H ratio that is much larger than solar. We also present arguments that demonstrate that the hydrogen is very likely not accreted from the ISM but is the result of convective mixing of a residual thin hydrogen layer with the developing helium convection zone. It is very important to carefully consider the bias from observational selection effects when drawing these conclusions.
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