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Register a new userThermohaline Instabilities Induced by Heavy Element Accretion onto White Dwarfs: Consequences on the Derived Accretion Rates
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Heavy elements are observed in the atmospheres of many DA and DB white dwarfs, and their presence is attributed to the accretion of matter coming from debris disks. Several authors have deduced accretion rates from the observed abundances, taking into account the mixing induced by the convective zones and the gravitational settling. The obtained values are different for DA and DB white dwarfs. Here we show that an important process was forgotten in all these computations: thermohaline mixing, induced by the inverse $mu$-gradient built during the accretion process. Taking this mixing into account leads to an increase of the derived accretion rates, specially for DA white dwarfs, and modifies the conclusions.
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Recent observations of a large number of DA and DB white dwarfs show evidence of debris disks, which are the remnants of old planetary systems. The infrared excess detected with emph{Spitzer} and the lines of heavy elements observed in their atmospheres with high-resolution spectroscopy converge on the idea that planetary material accretes onto these stars. Accretion rates have been derived by several authors with the assumption of a steady state between accretion and gravitational settling. The results are unrealistically different for DA and DB white dwarfs. When heavy matter is accreted onto stars, it induces an inverse $mu$-gradient that leads to fingering (thermohaline) convection. The aim of this letter is to study the impact of this specific process on the derived accretion rates in white dwarfs and on the difference between DA and DB. We solve the diffusion equation for the accreted heavy elements with a time-dependent method. The models we use have been obtained both with the IRAP code, which computes static models, and the La Plata code, which computes evolutionary sequences. Computations with pure gravitational settling are compared with computations that include fingering convection. The most important result is that fingering convection has very important effects on DAs but is inefficient in DBs. When only gravitational settling is taken into account, the time-dependent computations lead to a steady state, as postulated by previous authors. When fingering convection is added, this steady state occurs much later. The surprising difference found in the past for the accretion rates derived for DA and DB white dwarfs disappears. The derived accretion rates for DAs are increased when fingering convection is taken into account, whereas those for DBs are not modified. More precise and developed results will be given in a forthcoming paper.
The final outcomes of accreting ONe white dwarfs (ONe WDs) have been studied for several decades, but there are still some issues not resolved. Recently, some studies suggested that the deflagration of oxygen would occur for accreting ONe WDs with Chandrasekhar masses. In this paper, we aim to investigate whether ONe WDs can experience accretion-induced collapse (AIC) or explosions when their masses approach the Chandrasekhar limit. Employing the stellar evolution code modules for experiments in stellar astrophysics (MESA), we simulate the long-term evolution of ONe WDs by accreting CO material. The ONe WDs undergo weak multicycle carbon flashes during the mass-accretion process, leading to the mass increase of the WDs. We found that different initial WD masses and mass-accretion rates have influence on the evolution of central density and temperature. However, the central temperature cannot reach the explosive oxygen ignition temperature due to the neutrino cooling. This work implies that the final outcome of accreting ONe WDs is electron-capture induced collapse rather than thermonuclear explosion.
Atmospheric heavy elements have been observed in more than a quarter of white dwarfs (WDs) at different cooling ages, indicating ongoing accretion of asteroidal material, whilst only a few per cent of the WDs possess a dust disk, and all these WDs are accreting metals. Here, assuming that a rubble-pile asteroid is scattered inside a WDs Roche lobe by a planet, we study its tidal disruption and the long-term evolution of the resulting fragments. We find that after a few pericentric passages, the asteroid is shredded into its constituent particles, forming a flat, thin ring. On a timescale of Myr, tens of per cent of the particles are scattered onto the WD. Fragment mutual collisions are most effective for coplanar fragments, and are thus only important in $10^3-10^4$ yr before the orbital coplanarity is broken by the planet. We show that for a rubble pile asteroid with a size frequency distribution of the component particles following that of the near earth objects, it has to be roughly at least 10 km in radius such that enough fragments are generated and $ge10%$ of its mass is lost to mutual collisions. At relative velocities of tens of km/s, such collisions grind down the tidal fragments into smaller and smaller dust grains. The WD radiation forces may shrink those grains orbits, forming a dust disk. Tidal disruption of a monolithic asteroid creates large km-size fragments, and only parent bodies $ge100$ km are able to generate enough fragments for mutual collisions to be significant.
Models have long predicted that the frequency-averaged masses of white dwarfs in Galactic classical novae are twice as large as those of field white dwarfs. Only a handful of dynamically well-determined nova white dwarf masses have been published, leaving the theoretical predictions poorly tested. The recurrence time distributions and mass accretion rate distributions of novae are even more poorly known. To address these deficiencies, we have combined our extensive simulations of nova eruptions with the Strope et al (2010) and Schaefer et al (2010) databases of outburst characteristics of Galactic classical and recurrent novae to determine the masses of 92 white dwarfs in novae. We find that the mean mass (frequency averaged mean mass) of 82 Galactic classical novae is 1.06 (1.13) Msun, while the mean mass of 10 recurrent novae is 1.31 Msun. These masses, and the observed nova outburst amplitude and decline time distributions allow us to determine the long-term mass accretion rate distribution of classical novae. Remarkably, that value is just 1.3 x 10^{-10} Msun/yr, which is an order of magnitude smaller than that of cataclysmic binaries in the decades before and after classical nova eruptions. This predicts that old novae become low mass transfer rate systems, and hence dwarf novae, for most of the time between nova eruptions. We determine the mass accretion rates of each of the 10 known Galactic RN, finding them to be in the range 10^{-7} - 10^{-8} $ Msun/yr. We are able to predict the recurrence time distribution of novae and compare it with the predictions of population synthesis models.
The element beryllium is detected for the first time in white dwarf stars. This discovery in the spectra of two helium-atmosphere white dwarfs was made possible only because of the remarkable overabundance of Be relative to all other elements, heavier than He, observed in these stars. The measured Be abundances, relative to chondritic, are by far the largest ever seen in any astronomical object. We anticipate that the Be in these accreted planetary bodies was produced by spallation of one or more of O, C, and N in a region of high fluence of particles of MeV or greater energy.
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