The Local White Dwarf Population and the Vast New Domain of Stellar Surveys

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

White dwarfs are the highly dense, planet-sized end states of stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel. About 98% of all stars - including our Sun - will end their lives as white dwarfs. The proposal team consists of senior researchers at three institutions, and they have a vast combined experience in observational studies of white dwarfs. Their study of these stars will provide critical insights about the history of the Milky Way galaxy. The project to measure the properties of all white dwarf stars in our solar neighborhood will produce results that are of fundamental importance in several areas of stellar astrophysics. They will also enhance the Villanova Catalog of Spectroscopically Identified White Dwarfs, which has been a primary resource for the astronomical community (both professional and amateur) for four decades. PI Holberg has authored a popular science book and is working on two more, including one about White Dwarfs. CoPI Oswalt will share results from this program as an American Astronomical Society Shapley Visiting Lecturer. This award will provide training opportunities for a University of Arizona graduate student and for undergraduate students from Villanova University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The proposal team will compile and characterize a volume-limited sample of the local white dwarf population within 50 parsecs. This will increase the number of well-studied, nearby white dwarfs by an order of magnitude, and it will enable us to address questions such as the relative distribution of different white dwarf types, the binary fraction of white dwarfs, the local mass distribution and chemical evolution of the galaxy, white dwarf spectral evolution, and many others. It will also provide a reference sample for the vast numbers of more distant white dwarfs likely to be discovered with future survey missions like Gaia and LSST. The new observations will also provide significant enhancements to the Villanova Catalog of Spectroscopically Identified White Dwarfs, which serves as a fundamental reference.