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As part of an investigation into the high mass end of the initial mass-final mass relation we performed a search for new white dwarf members of the nearby (172.4 pc), young (80-90 Myr) $alpha$ Persei open star cluster. The photometric and astrometric search using the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey and SuperCOSMOS sky surveys discovered 14 new white dwarf candidates. We have obtained medium resolution optical spectra of the brightest 11 candidates using the William Herschel Telescope and confirmed that while 7 are DA white dwarfs, 3 are DB white dwarfs and one is an sdOB star, only three have cooling ages within the cluster age, and from their position on the initial mass-final mass relation, it is likely none are cluster members. This result is disappointing, as recent work on the cluster mass function suggests that there should be at least one white dwarf member, even at this young age. It may be that any white dwarf members of $alpha$ Per are hidden within binary systems, as is the case in the Hyades cluster, however the lack of high mass stars within the cluster also makes this seem unlikely. One alternative is that a significant level of detection incompleteness in the legacy optical image survey data at this Galactic latitude has caused some white dwarf members to be overlooked. If this is the case, Gaia will find them.
We present precise photometry and spectroscopy for 23 candidate spectrophotometric standard white dwarfs. The selected stars are distributed in the Northern hemisphere and around the celestial equators and are all fainter than r ~ 16.5 mag. This netw
Traces of photospheric hydrogen are detected in at least half of all white dwarfs with helium-dominated atmospheres through the presence of H alpha in high-quality optical spectroscopy. Previous studies have noted significant discrepancies between th
The hydrogen abundances in DBA white dwarfs determined from optical or UV spectra have been reported to differ significantly in some studies. We revisit this problem using our own model atmospheres and synthetic spectra, and present a theoretical inv
In this paper we review the current status of research on the observational and theoretical characteristics of isolated and binary magnetic white dwarfs (MWDs). Magnetic fields of isolated MWDs are observed to lie in the range 10^3-10^9G. While the
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has allowed us to increase the number of known white dwarfs by a factor of five and consequently the number of known pulsating white dwarfs also by a factor of five. It has also led to the discovery of new types of variab