The miniJPAS survey: White dwarf science with 56 optical filters

Abstract

We analyze the white dwarf population in miniJPAS, the first square degree observed with 56 medium-band, 145 A in width optical filters by the Javalambre Physics of the accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS), to provide a data-based forecast for the white dwarf science with low-resolution (R ~ 50) photo-spectra. We define the sample of the bluest point-like sources in miniJPAS with r < 21.5 mag, point-like probability larger than 0.5, (u-r) < 0.80 mag, and (g-i) < 0.25 mag. This sample comprises 33 sources with spectroscopic information, 11 white dwarfs and 22 QSOs. We estimate the effective temperature (Teff), the surface gravity, and the composition of the white dwarf population by a Bayesian fitting to the observed photo-spectra. The miniJPAS data permit the classification of the observed white dwarfs into H-dominated and He-dominated with 99% confidence, and the detection of calcium absorption and polluting metals down to r ~ 21.5 mag at least for sources with 7000 < Teff < 22000 K, the temperature range covered by the white dwarfs in miniJPAS. The effective temperature is estimated with a 2% uncertainty, close to the 1% from spectroscopy. A precise estimation of the surface gravity depends on the available parallax information. In addition, the white dwarf population at Teff > 7000 K can be segregated from the bluest extragalactic QSOs, providing a clean sample based on optical photometry alone. The J-PAS low-resolution photo-spectra provide precise and accurate effective temperatures and atmospheric compositions for white dwarfs, complementing the data from Gaia. J-PAS will also detect and characterize new white dwarfs beyond the Gaia magnitude limit, providing faint candidates for spectroscopic follow up.

Submitted to Astronomy and Astrophyscis. 12 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables. Comments are welcome

References in corpus (15)

• The Gaia mission
• A catalogue of white dwarfs in Gaia EDR3
• Super and massive AGB stars - IV. Final fates - Initial to final mass relation
• New white dwarf stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10
• Gaia Data Release 3: Processing and validation of BP/RP low-resolution spectral data
• Gaia Data Release 3: External calibration of BP/RP low-resolution spectroscopic data
• On the Measurement of Fundamental Parameters of White Dwarfs in the Gaia Era
• The 100 pc White Dwarf Sample in the SDSS Footprint
• White dwarf and subdwarf stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 14
• $Gaia$ white dwarfs within 40 pc II: the volume-limited northern hemisphere sample
• Gaia Data Release 3: The Galaxy in your preferred colours. Synthetic photometry from Gaia low-resolution spectra
• Gaia photometry for white dwarfs
• A Deep Proper Motion Catalog Within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Footprint. II. The White Dwarf Luminosity Function
• Calibration of the mixing length theory for structures of helium-dominated atmosphere white dwarfs
• Cool white dwarfs as standards for infrared observations

Cited by in corpus (3)

• The 40 pc sample of white dwarfs from Gaia
• J-PLUS: The fraction of calcium white dwarfs along the cooling sequence
• J-PLUS: Understanding outlier white dwarfs in the third data release via dimensionality reduction