Found: The missing blue opacity in atmosphere models of cool hydrogen white dwarfs

Abstract

We investigate the importance of the far red wing of the Lyman $\alpha$ line of hydrogen in the atmospheres of cool white dwarfs of pure hydrogen composition. We find that this absorption process dominates all important sources of opacity in the blue part of the optical spectrum of these stars. Our successful fits to the spectra of cool DA/DC white dwarfs indicate that the far red wing of the $\mathrm{Ly}\alpha$ line is the source of opacity that had been missing in the models. The observed sequence of cool white dwarfs in color-color diagrams is very well reproduced by our new pure hydrogen atmosphere models, suggesting that the atmospheric composition of the coolest DC white dwarfs must be revisited.

11 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

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