Search For Oxygen in Cool DQ White Dwarf Atmospheres

Details Search For Oxygen in Cool DQ White Dwarf Atmospheres Search For Oxygen in Cool DQ White Dwarf Atmospheres

2002-09-15

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0209286v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

2 pages, 2 figures, to appear in proceedings of the 13th European Workshop on White Dwarfs

Scientific paper

We report new infrared spectroscopic observations of cool DQ white dwarfs by using Coolspec on the 2.7m Harlan-Smith Telescope. DQs have helium-rich atmospheres with traces of molecular carbon thought to be the result of convective dredge-up from their C/O interiors. Recent model calculations predict that oxygen should also be present in DQ atmospheres in detectable amounts. Our synthetic spectra calculations for He-rich white dwarfs with traces of C and O indicate that CO should be easily detected in the cool DQ atmospheres if present in the expected amounts. Determination of the oxygen abundance in the atmosphere will reveal the C/O ratio at the core/envelope boundary, constraining the important and uncertain ^{12}C(alpha,gamma)^{16}O reaction rate.

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