Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2003-12-11
Astrophys.J. 602 (2004) L109-L112
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4 pages emulateapj, 3 figures, accepted for ApJ Letters
Scientific paper
10.1086/382591
We demonstrate that plasmon neutrinos are the dominant form of energy loss in model white dwarf stars down to T_eff ~ 25,000 K, depending on the stellar mass. The lower end of this range overlaps the observed temperatures for the V777 Her star (DBV) instability strip. The evolution of white dwarfs at these temperatures is driven predominantly by cooling, so this directly affects the stellar evolutionary timescale in proportion to the ratio of the neutrino energy loss to the photon energy loss. This evolutionary timescale is observable through the time rate of change of the pulsation periods. Although the unified electro-weak theory of lepton interactions that is crucial for understanding neutrino production has been well tested in the high energy regime, the approach presented here should result in an interesting low-energy test of the theory. We discuss observational strategies to achieve this goal.
Kawaler Stephen D.
Metcalfe Travis Scott
Montgomery Michael H.
Sullivan David J.
Winget Don E.
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