Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T20:27:51.451Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Phase Diagram of High Density Binary Mixtures and the Luminosity Function of Single White Dwarfs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

J. Isern
Affiliation:
Centre d Estudis Avançats de Blanes, CSIC 17300 Blanes (Girona), Spain
E. Garcia-Berro
Affiliation:
Departament de Fisica Aplicada ETUETOPB-UPC Departament de Fisica de I Atmosfera, Astronomía i Astrofísica UB
M. Hernanz
Affiliation:
Departament de Fisica i Enginyeria Nuclear ETSEIB-UPC
R. Mochkovitch
Affiliation:
Institut d Astrophysique de Paris

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

For the last two decades, plasma physics developments have led to a better understanding of physical conditions in white dwarfs interiors. Following the pioneering work of Mestel (1952), the problem of white dwarf cooling has been a subject of continuous interest until the present time. In the early sixties, Kirzhnits (1960), Abrikosov (1960), and Salpeter (1961) recognised the importance of Coulomb interactions in the dense plasma which forms the white dwarf interior. A first-order transition from liquid to solid phase was predicted and the resultant release of latent heat was shown to somewhat affect the cooling rate (Mestel and Ruderman, 1967). Subsequently, improved theoretical luminosity functions (number of white dwarfs per pc9 and per magnitude interval as a function of luminosity) taking into account not only Coulomb interactions but also neutrino losses, and using detailed atmosphere models (Van Horn, 1968; Koester, 1972; Lamb and Van Horn, 1975; Shaviv and Kovets, 1976; Sweeney, 1976). Recently, Iben and Tutukov (1984) have discussed the evolution of a 0.6 M carbon-oxygen white dwarf from its nuclear burning stages to complete crystallization. Their luminosity function agrees reasonably well with observations in the range −4 ≤ log(L/L) ≤ 4 but it predicts an excess of white dwarfs at low luminosities. Indeed, the luminosity function derived from observations grows monotonically until log(L/L) ≃ −4.5 (Mv ≤ 16) and then makes an abrupt shortfall (Liebert, Dahn and Monet, 1988). The agreement between theory and observations is so good in the aforementioned range luminosity that we can wonder as to whether it is possible not only to test the theory of white dwarf cooling but also to obtain information on the galactic structure and evolution. One example of that is the use of the cutoff in the white distribution to determine the age of the galactic disk (Schmidt, 1959). Using this method, Winget et al. (1987) have found that the galactic disk age could be of the order of 9 Gyr old, in agreement with some predictions from nucleocosmochronology (Fowler et al. 1987).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Springer-Verlag 1989

References

Abrikosov, D.A., 1960, Soviet Phys. JETP 12, 1254 Google Scholar
Barrat, J.L., Hansen, J.P., Mochkovitch, R., 1988, Astron. Astrophys. 199, L15 Google Scholar
Fowler, W.A., 1987, Q.J. R. Astron. Soc. 28, 87 Google Scholar
Garcia-Berro, E., Hernanz, M., Isern, J., Mochkovitch, R., 1988a, Astron. Astrophys. 193, 141 Google Scholar
Garcia-Berro, E., Hernanz, M., Isern, J., Mochkovitch, R., 1988b, Nature 333, 644 Google Scholar
Hansen, J.P., Torrie, G.M., Viellefoisse, J.P., 1977, A16, 2153.Google Scholar
Iben, I., Tutukov, A.V., 1984, Astrophys. J. 238, 685 Google Scholar
Kirzhnits, D.A., 1960, Soviet Phys JETP 11, 365 Google Scholar
Koester, D., 1972, Astron. Astrophys. 16, 459 Google Scholar
Lamb, D.Q., van Horn, H.M., 1975, Astrophys. J. 200, 306 Google Scholar
Liebert, J., Dahn, C.C., Monet, D.S.,1988, Astrophys. J., in pressGoogle Scholar
Mazzitelli, I., D’Antona, F., 1986, Astrophys. J. 311, 762 Google Scholar
Mestel, L., 1952, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron Soc. 112, 583 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mestel, L., Ruderman, M.A., 1967, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron Soc. 136, 27 Google Scholar
Mochkovitch, R., 1983, Astron. Astrophys. 122, 212 Google Scholar
Salpeter, E.E., 1961, Astrophys. J. 309, 210 Google Scholar
Schmidt, M., 1959, Astrophys. J. 129, 243 Google Scholar
Shaviv, G., Kovetz, A., 1976, Astron Astrophys. 51, 383 Google Scholar
Stevenson, D.J., 1980, J. Phys. Suppl. No 3, 41, C2/61Google Scholar
Sweeney, M.A., 1976, Astron. Astrophys. 49, 375 Google Scholar
van Horn, H.M., 1968, Astrophys. J. 151, 227 Google Scholar
Winget, D.E., Hansen, C.J., Liebert, J., van Horn, H.M., Fontaine, G., Nather, R.E., Kepler, S.O., Lamb, D.Q., 1987, Astrophys. J. (Letters) 315, L77 Google Scholar