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Article
Photometric Identification of Cool White Dwarfs
The Astronomical Journal
  • M. Kilic, University of Texas at Austin
  • D. E. Winget, University of Texas at Austin
  • Ted von Hippel, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
  • C. F. Claver, Kitt Peak National Observatory, National Optical Observatory
Submitting Campus
Daytona Beach
Department
Physical Sciences
Document Type
Article
Publication/Presentation Date
10-1-2004
Abstract/Description

We investigate the use of a narrowband DDO51 filter for photometric identification of cool white dwarfs. We report photometric observations of 30 known cool white dwarfs with temperatures ranging from 10,000 K down to very cool temperatures (3500 K). Follow-up spectroscopic observations of a sample of objects selected using this filter and our photometric observations show that DDO51 filter photometry can help select cool white dwarf candidates for follow-up multiobject spectroscopy by rejecting 65% of main-sequence stars with the same broadband colors as the cool white dwarfs. This technique is not selective enough to efficiently feed single-object spectrographs. We present the white dwarf cooling sequence using this filter. Our observations show that very cool white dwarfs form a sequence in the r DDO versus r z color-color diagram and demonstrate that significant improvements are needed in white dwarf model atmospheres.

Publisher
Institute of Physics Publishing, Inc.
Grant or Award Name
National Science Foundation grant 0307315
Citation Information
M. Kilic, D. E. Winget, Ted von Hippel and C. F. Claver. "Photometric Identification of Cool White Dwarfs" The Astronomical Journal Vol. 128 Iss. 4 (2004) p. 1825 - 1833
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ted-vonhippel/74/