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Register a new userA new weak-field magnetic DA white dwarf in the local 20 pc volume. The frequency of magnetic fields in DA stars
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We report the discovery of a new magnetic DA white dwarf (WD), WD0011-721, which is located within the very important 20pc volume-limited sample of the closest WDs to the Sun. This star has a mean field modulus <|B|> of 343 kG, and from the polarisation signal we deduce a line-of-sight field component of 75 kG. The magnetic field is sufficiently weak to have escaped detection in classification spectra. We then present a preliminary exploration of the data concerning the frequency of such fields among WDs with hydrogen-rich atmospheres (DA stars). We find that 20 +- 5% of the DA WDs in this volume have magnetic fields, mostly weaker than 1 MG. Unlike the slow field decay found among the magnetic Bp stars of the upper main sequence, the WDs in this sample show no evidence of magnetic field or flux changes over several Gyr.
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The sample of white dwarfs included in the local 20 pc volume documents, fairly accurately, the total production of white dwarfs over roughly 10 Gyr of stellar evolution in this part of the Milky Way Galaxy. In this sample, we have been systematically searching for magnetic white dwarfs. Here we report the discovery of six new magnetic white dwarfs, with a field strength from a few MG to about 200MG. Two of these stars show H lines that are split and polarised by the magnetic field. One star shows extremely weak spectral lines in intensity, to which highly polarised narrow features correspond. The three other stars have featureless flux spectra, but show continuum polarisation. These new discoveries support the view that at least 20% of all white dwarfs in the local 20 pc volume have magnetic fields, and they fully confirm the suspicion that magnetism is a common rather than a rare characteristic of white dwarfs. We discuss the level and the handedness of the continuum polarisation in the presence of a magnetic field in cool white dwarfs. We suggest that a magnetic field with a 15 MG longitudinal component produces 1% of continuum circular polarisation. We have also shown that the problem of cross-talk from linear to circular polarisation of the FORS2 instrument, used in our survey, represents an obstacle to accurate measurements of the circular polarisation of faint white dwarfs when the background is illuminated, and polarised, by the moon.
We present 16 new, and confirm 7 previously identified, DA white dwarfs in the Kepler field through ground-based spectroscopy with the Hale 200, Kitt Peak 4-meter, and Bok 2.3-meter telescopes. Using atmospheric models we determine their effective temperatures and surface gravities to constrain their position with respect to the ZZ Ceti (DA pulsator) instability strip, and look for the presence or absence of pulsation with Keplers unprecedented photometry. Our results are as follows: i) From our measurements of temperature and surface gravity, 12 of the 23 DA white dwarfs from this work fall well outside of the instability strip. The Kepler photometry available for 11 of these WDs allows us to confirm that none are pulsating. One of these eleven happens to be a presumed binary, KIC 11604781, with a period of ~5 days. ii) The remaining 11 DA white dwarfs are instability strip candidates, potentially falling within the current, empirical instability strip, after accounting for uncertainties. These WDs will help constrain the strips location further, as eight are near the blue edge and three are near the red edge of the instability strip. Four of these WDs do not have Kepler photometry, so ground-based photometry is needed to determine the pulsation nature of these white dwarfs. The remaining seven have Kepler photometry available, but do not show any periodicity on typical WD pulsation timescales.
We report the discovery of weak magnetic fields in three white dwarfs within the local 20pc volume (WD 0816-310, WD 1009-184, and WD 1532+129), and we confirm the magnetic nature of a fourth star (WD 2138-332) in which we had previously detected a field at a 3 sigma level. The spectra of all these white dwarfs are characterised by the presence of metal lines and lack of H and He lines, that is, they belong to the spectral class DZ. The polarisation signal of the Ca II H+K lines of WD 1009-184 is particularly spectacular, with an amplitude of 20% that is due to the presence of a magnetic field with an average line-of-sight component of 40kG. We have thus established that at least 40% of the known DZ white dwarfs with an He-rich atmosphere contained in the 20pc volume have a magnetic field, while further observations are needed to establish whether the remaining DZ white dwarfs in the same volume are magnetic or not. Metal lines in the spectra of DZ white dwarfs are thought to have originated by accretion from rocky debris, and it might be argued that a link exists between metal accretion and higher occurrence of magnetism. However, we are not able to distinguish whether the magnetic field and the presence of a polluted atmosphere have a common origin, or if it is the presence of metal lines that allows us to detect a higher frequency of magnetic fields in cool white dwarfs, which would otherwise have featureless spectra. We argue that the new highly sensitive longitudinal field measurements that we have made in recent years are consistent with the idea that the magnetic field appears more frequently in older than in younger white dwarfs.
A study of high ion metal absorption features present in the spectra of hot DA white dwarfs is presented. An analysis of three DAs is performed, where previous studies came to conflicting conclusions as to the stars nitrogen configurations. The nitrogen abundances were found to be in keeping with DAs of higher Teff, with a homogeneous distribution. A search for circumstellar gas discs was performed on eight stars, where circumstellar pollution may explain the differences between predicted and observed metal abundances. No positive detections were made. Already the subject of previous studies, the circumstellar absorption features seen at many hot DAs were again analysed, using a more advanced technique than those implemented in previous studies. This allowed, for the first time, column density measurements for all non-photospheric absorbing material. The derived column density measurements are consistent with those predicted to exist in white dwarf Stromgren Spheres, and the velocities of the absorbing material are not far from the velocities of either the observed ISM or predicted LISM clouds along the stars sight lines. However, given the distances to some of the stars, it is unlikely that the ionised material resides in the LISM in all cases; it may however be loosely related to it. The observations here could not conclusively rule out the ionisation of circumstellar material about the stars, though no evidence for such material has yet been found. The velocity of the circumstellar material at WD2218+706 is inconsistent with the expansion velocity of the PN at the star, implying that the circumstellar material does not reside in the PN, though it may have originated there. Once though to be related to these circumstellar features, mass loss at the DAs has been ruled out, since the high log g of these stars prohibits the loss of significant mass in a stellar wind.
Searches for magnetic fields in white dwarfs have clarified both the frequency of occurrence and the global structure of the fields found down to field strengths of the order of 500 kG. Below this level, the situation is still very unclear. We are studying the weakest fields found in white dwarfs to determine the frequency of such fields and their structure. We describe a very sensitive new method of measuring such fields in DA (H-rich) white dwarfs, and search for a field in the brightest such star, 40 Eri B. Our new method makes use of the strongly enhanced polarisation signal in the sharp core of Halpha. We find that with one-hour integrations with the high-resolution spectropolarimeter ESPaDOnS on the 3.6-m CFHT, we can reach a standard error fo the longitudinal field of about 85 G, the smallest error ever achieved for any white dwarf. Nevertheless, we do not detect a magnetic field in this star. Observations with ISIS at the WHT, and the Main Stellar Spectrograph at the SAO, support the absence of a field at somewhat lower precision. The new method is very efficient; it is shown that for suitable DA stars the integration time, with ESPaDOnS on a 3.6-m telescope, to reach a 500 G standard error on a white dwarf of V = 12.5, is about half an hour, about the same as the time required on an ESO 8-m telescope with FORS using conventional low-resolution spectropolarimetry.
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