Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs
Context. White dwarfs are the fossils left by the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, and have very long evolutionary timescales. This allows us to use them to explore the properties of old populations, like the Galactic halo. Aims. We present a population synthesis study of the luminos...
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
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| Formato: | Articulo |
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2015
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| Acceso en línea: | http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/86361 |
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I19-R120-10915-86361 |
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dspace |
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Universidad Nacional de La Plata |
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I-19 |
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R-120 |
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SEDICI (UNLP) |
| language |
Inglés |
| topic |
Ciencias Astronómicas Galaxy: abundances Galaxy: evolution Stars: luminosity function, mass function white dwarfs |
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Ciencias Astronómicas Galaxy: abundances Galaxy: evolution Stars: luminosity function, mass function white dwarfs Cojocaru, Ruxandra Torres, Santiago Althaus, Leandro Gabriel Isern, Jordi García Berro, Enrique Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs |
| topic_facet |
Ciencias Astronómicas Galaxy: abundances Galaxy: evolution Stars: luminosity function, mass function white dwarfs |
| description |
Context. White dwarfs are the fossils left by the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, and have very long evolutionary timescales. This allows us to use them to explore the properties of old populations, like the Galactic halo.
Aims. We present a population synthesis study of the luminosity function of halo white dwarfs, aimed at investigating which information can be derived from the currently available observed data.
Methods. We employ an up-to-date population synthesis code based on Monte Carlo techniques, which incorporates the most recent and reliable cooling sequences for metal-poor progenitors as well as an accurate modeling of the observational biases.
Results. We find that because the observed sample of halo white dwarfs is restricted to the brightest stars, only the hot branch of the white dwarf luminosity function can be used for these purposes, and that its shape function is almost insensitive to the most relevant inputs, such as the adopted cooling sequences, the initial mass function, the density profile of the stellar spheroid, or the adopted fraction of unresolved binaries. Moreover, since the cutoff of the observed luminosity has not yet been determined only the lower limits to the age of the halo population can be placed.
Conclusions. We conclude that the current observed sample of the halo white dwarf population is still too small to obtain definite conclusions about the properties of the stellar halo, and the recently computed white dwarf cooling sequences, which incorporate residual hydrogen burning, should be assessed using metal-poor globular clusters. |
| format |
Articulo Articulo |
| author |
Cojocaru, Ruxandra Torres, Santiago Althaus, Leandro Gabriel Isern, Jordi García Berro, Enrique |
| author_facet |
Cojocaru, Ruxandra Torres, Santiago Althaus, Leandro Gabriel Isern, Jordi García Berro, Enrique |
| author_sort |
Cojocaru, Ruxandra |
| title |
Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs |
| title_short |
Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs |
| title_full |
Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs |
| title_fullStr |
Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs |
| title_sort |
revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs |
| publishDate |
2015 |
| url |
http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/86361 |
| work_keys_str_mv |
AT cojocaruruxandra revisitingtheluminosityfunctionofsinglehalowhitedwarfs AT torressantiago revisitingtheluminosityfunctionofsinglehalowhitedwarfs AT althausleandrogabriel revisitingtheluminosityfunctionofsinglehalowhitedwarfs AT isernjordi revisitingtheluminosityfunctionofsinglehalowhitedwarfs AT garciaberroenrique revisitingtheluminosityfunctionofsinglehalowhitedwarfs |
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Repositorios |
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1764820489610461186 |