Finding The Friends: Radio And Optical Searches For Companions To Low-Mass White Dwarfs

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

The number of known white dwarfs (WDs) has increased dramatically since the advent of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The majority of these objects are hydrogen (DA) WDs for which the mass distribution peaks at the expected value of 0.6 solar masses for field DAs. However, among the new SDSS WDs there are also a handful of candidate very low-mass WDs (LMWDs), typically with masses below 0.3 solar masses. Such objects are noteworthy not only because of their rarity, but because the Galaxy is not old enough to have produced LMWDs through the evolution of single stars. The SDSS LMWDs, however, do not show the photometric excess or spectroscopic signature associated with a companion in their discovery data. Here we report on radio (Green Bank Telescope) and optical (Gemini North and South Telescopes) campaigns to identify and characterize the currently unseen companions to these rare WDs. M. Agueros is supported by an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship under award AST-0602099. Further support was provided via NRAO/GBT GSSP06-0008.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Finding The Friends: Radio And Optical Searches For Companions To Low-Mass White Dwarfs does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Finding The Friends: Radio And Optical Searches For Companions To Low-Mass White Dwarfs, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Finding The Friends: Radio And Optical Searches For Companions To Low-Mass White Dwarfs will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1475294

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.