Course Identification

Title:

Recent development in studies of White Dwarf populations

Code:

20241282

Lecturers and Teaching Assistants

Lecturers:

Dr. Sagi Ben-Ami

TA's:

N/A

Course Schedule and Location

Year:

2024

Semester:

Second Semester

When / Where:

Sunday, 15:15 - 16:00, Benozio Center for Astrophysics

First Lecture:

07/04/2024

End date:

07/07/2024

Field of Study, Course Type and Credit Points

Physical Sciences: 1.00 points

Comments

Reading Course

Prerequisites

No

Restrictions

Participants:

10

Language of Instruction

English

Attendance and participation

Required in at least 80% of the lectures

Grade Type

Pass / Fail

Grade Breakdown (in %)

Attendance

50%

Other :

50%

Evaluation Type

Other

Scheduled date 1

Date / due date

N/A

Location

N/A

Time

-

Remarks

N/A

Estimated Weekly Independent Workload (in hours)

2

Syllabus

We will review recent developments in the study of White Dwarfs, with a focus on results from the latest ky surveys. Each participant will need to review and present 2-3 journal papers from the list below.

Learning Outcomes

The participants will acquire knowledge of recent develop in the study of White Dwarfs, their properties and their evolution.

Reading List

The GAIA Whire Dwarf Revolution: https://arxiv.org/html/2402.14960v1

B´edard, A., Bergeron, P., Fontaine, G., 2017. Measurements of Physical Parameters of White Dwarfs: A Test of the Mass-Radius Relation. ApJ 848, 11. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa8bb6, arXiv:1709.02324.

Saumon, D., Blouin, S., Tremblay, P.E., 2022. Current challenges in the physics of white dwarf stars. Physics Reports 988, 1–63. doi:10.1016/j. physrep.2022.09.001, arXiv:2209.02846.

Caiazzo, I. et al., 2023. A rotating white dwarf shows different com- positions on its opposite faces. Nature 620, 61–66. doi:10.1038/ s41586-023-06171-9, arXiv:2308.07430.

Burdge, K. B. et al., 2022. A dense 0.1-solar-mass star in a 51-minute- orbital-period eclipsing binary. Nature 610, 467–471. doi:10.1038/ s41586-022-05195-x, arXiv:2210.01809.

Elms, A.K., Tremblay, P.E., G¨ansicke, B.T., Koester, D., Hollands, M.A., Gentile Fusillo, N.P., Cunningham, T., Apps, K., 2022. Spectral analysis of ultra-cool white dwarfs polluted by planetary debris. MNRAS 517, 4557–4574. doi:10.1093/mnras/stac2908, arXiv:2206.05258.

Kilic, M., Bergeron, P., Kosakowski, A., Brown, W.R., Ag¨ueros, M.A., Blouin, S., 2020b. The 100 pc White Dwarf Sample in the SDSS Foot- print. ApJ 898, 84. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab9b8d, arXiv:2006.00323.

Tremblay, P.-E. et al., 2019b. Core crystallization and pile-up in the cooling sequence of evolving white dwarfs. Nature 565, 202–205. doi:10.1038/ s41586-018-0791-x, arXiv:1908.00370.

Kilic, M., Bergeron, P., Dame, K., Hambly, N.C., Rowell, N., Crawford, C.L., 2019. The age of the Galactic stellar halo from Gaia white dwarfs. MNRAS 482, 965–979. doi:10.1093/mnras/sty2755, arXiv:1810.03536.

Shen, K.J., Blouin, S., Breivik, K., 2023. The Q Branch Cooling Anomaly Can Be Explained by Mergers of White Dwarfs and Subgiant Stars. ApJl 955, L33. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/acf57b, arXiv:2308.04559.

Website

N/A