The halo white dwarf population

Abstract

Halo white dwarfs can provide important information about the properties and evolution of the galactic halo. In this paper we compute, assuming a standard IMF and updated models of white dwarf cooling, the expected luminosity function, both in luminosity and in visual magnitude, for different star formation rates. We show that a deep enough survey (limiting magnitude > 20) could provide important information about the halo age and the duration of the formation stage. We also show that the number of white dwarfs produced using the recently proposed biased IMFs cannot represent a large fraction of the halo dark matter if they are constrained by the presently observed luminosity function. Furthermore, we show that a robust determination of the bright portion of the luminosity function can provide strong constraints on the allowable IMF shapes.

29 pages (AASTeX), 7 eps figures included, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (5)

• The cooling of CO white dwarfs: influence of the internal chemical distribution
• The Physics of crystallizing white dwarfs
• The Chemical Residue of a White Dwarf-Dominated Galactic Halo
• Evidence for an Intervening Stellar Population Toward the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Further constraints on white dwarf galactic halos

Cited by in corpus (42)

• Evolutionary and pulsational properties of white dwarf stars
• New cooling sequences for old white dwarfs
• The initial-final mass relationship of white dwarfs revisited: effect on the luminosity function and mass distribution
• A White Dwarf catalogue from Gaia-DR2 and the Virtual Observatory
• A large stellar evolution database for population synthesis studies: VI. White dwarf cooling sequences
• A Survey for Cool White Dwarfs and the age of the Galactic Disc
• The age and colors of massive white dwarf stars
• The initial-final mass relationship from white dwarfs in common proper motion pairs
• New evolutionary sequences for hot H-deficient white dwarfs on the basis of a full account of progenitor evolution
• The energetics of crystallizing white dwarfs revisited again
• High proper motion white dwarfs and halo dark matter
• Evolution of white dwarf stars with high-metallicity progenitors: the role of 22Ne diffusion
• The age-metallicity dependence for white dwarfs
• Monte Carlo simulations of the halo white dwarf population
• A New Very Cool White Dwarf Discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Gaia photometry for white dwarfs
• Evolutionary sequences for hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs
• The white dwarf luminosity function
• The Implications of the New Z=0 Stellar Models and Yields on the Early Metal Pollution of the Intergalactic Medium
• Random Forest identification of the thin disk, thick disk and halo Gaia-DR2 white dwarf population
• Axion Astrophysics
• Axions and the luminosity function of white dwarfs. The thin and thick disks, and the halo
• The Gaia DR2 halo white dwarf population: the luminosity function, mass distribution and its star formation history
• On high proper motion white dwarfs from photographic surveys
• White dwarfs and Galactic dark matter
• Neural Network identification of halo white dwarfs
• Local stellar formation history from the 40 pc white dwarf sample
• The white dwarf luminosity function. I. Statistical errors and alternatives
• Discovery of a nearby halo white dwarf with proper motion mu=2.55 arcsec/yr
• Pulsating low-mass white dwarfs in the frame of new evolutionary sequences: IV. The secular rate of period change
• The white dwarf cooling sequence of NGC 6791: a unique tool for stellar evolution
• The effects of ${}^{22}$Ne sedimentation and metallicity on the local 40 pc white dwarf luminosity function
• Binary white dwarfs in the halo of the Milky Way
• Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs
• A population synthesis study of the luminosity function of hot white dwarfs
• The contribution of red dwarfs and white dwarfs to the halo dark matter
• The effects of metallicity on the Galactic disk population of white dwarfs
• The contribution of Oxygen-Neon white dwarfs to the MACHO content of the Galactic Halo
• The population of single and binary white dwarfs of the Galactic bulge
• White dwarfs with hydrogen-deficient atmospheres and the dark matter content of the Galaxy
• Inferring properties of the local white dwarf population in astrometric and photometric surveys
• White dwarfs in the building blocks of the Galactic spheroid