arXiv subjects

S. J. Kleinman

Publications and source records attributed to S. J. Kleinman.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

The Morphology of Asteroidal Dust Around White Dwarf Stars: Optical and Near-infrared Pulsations in G29-38

More than 36 years have passed since the discovery of the infrared excess from circumstellar dust orbiting the white dwarf G29-38, which at 17.5 pc it is the nearest and brightest of its class. The precise morphology of the orbiting dust remains only marginally constrained by existing data, subject to model-dependent inferences, and thus fundamental questions of its dynamical origin and evolution persist. This study presents a means to constrain the geometric distribution of the emitting dust using stellar pulsations measured at optical wavelengths as a variable illumination source of the dust, which re-radiates primarily in the infrared. By combining optical photometry from the Whole Earth Telescope with 0.7-2.5 micron spectroscopy obtained with SpeX at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility, we detect luminosity variations at all observed wavelengths, with variations at most wavelengths corresponding to the behavior of the pulsating stellar photosphere, but towards the longest wavelengths the light curves probe the corresponding time-variability of the circumstellar dust. In addition to developing methodology, we find pulsation amplitudes decrease with increasing wavelength for principal pulsation modes, yet increase beyond approximately 2 microns for nonlinear combination frequencies. We interpret these results as combination modes deriving from principal modes of identical l values and discuss the implications for the morphology of the warm dust. We also draw attention to some discrepancies between our findings and theoretical expectations for the results of the non-linearity imposed by the surface convection zone on mode--mode interactions and on the behavior of the first harmonic of the highest-amplitude pulsation mode.

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arXiv2022

$\textit{Gaia}$ white dwarfs within 40 pc III: spectroscopic observations of new candidates in the southern hemisphere

We present a spectroscopic survey of 248 white dwarf candidates within 40 pc of the Sun; of these 244 are in the southern hemisphere. Observations were performed mostly with the Very Large Telescope (X-Shooter) and Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope. Almost all candidates were selected from $\textit{Gaia}$ Data Release 3 (DR3). We find a total of 246 confirmed white dwarfs, 209 of which had no previously published spectra, and two main-sequence star contaminants. Of these, 100 white dwarfs display hydrogen Balmer lines, 69 have featureless spectra, and two show only neutral helium lines. Additionally, 14 white dwarfs display traces of carbon, while 37 have traces of other elements that are heavier than helium. We observe 36 magnetic white dwarfs through the detection of Zeeman splitting of their hydrogen Balmer or metal spectral lines. High spectroscopic completeness (> 97 per cent) has now been reached, such that we have 1058 confirmed $\textit{Gaia}$ DR3 white dwarfs out of 1083 candidates within 40 pc of the Sun at all declinations.

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arXiv2021

Pulsating hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs and pre-white dwarfs observed with {\it TESS}: III. Asteroseismology of the DBV star GD 358

The collection of high-quality photometric data by space telescopes is revolutionizing the area of white-dwarf asteroseismology. Among the different kinds of pulsating white dwarfs, there are those that have He-rich atmospheres, and they are called DBVs or V777 Her variable stars. The archetype of these pulsating white dwarfs, GD~358, is the focus of the present paper. We report a thorough asteroseismological analysis of the DBV star GD~358 (TIC~219074038) based on new high-precision photometric data gathered by the {\it TESS} space mission combined with data taken from the Earth. In total, we detected 26 periodicities from the {\it TESS} light curve of this DBV star using a standard pre-whitening. The oscillation frequencies are associated with nonradial $g$(gravity)-mode pulsations with periods from $\sim 422$ s to $\sim 1087$ s. Moreover, we detected 8 combination frequencies between $\sim 543$ s and $\sim 295$ s. We combined these data with a huge amount of observations from the ground. We found a constant period spacing of $39.25\pm0.17$ s, which helped us to infer its mass ($M_{\star}= 0.588\pm0.024 M_{\sun}$) and constrain the harmonic degree $\ell$ of the modes. We carried out a period-fit analysis on GD~358, and we were successful in finding an asteroseismological model with a stellar mass ($M_{\star}= 0.584^{+0.025}_{-0.019} M_{\sun}$), in line with the spectroscopic mass ($M_{\star}= 0.560\pm0.028 M_{\sun}$). We found that the frequency splittings vary according to the radial order of the modes, suggesting differential rotation. Obtaining a seismological made it possible to estimate the seismological distance ($d_{\rm seis}= 42.85\pm 0.73$ pc) of GD~358, which is in very good accordance with the precise astrometric distance measured by {\it GAIA} EDR3 ($π= 23.244\pm 0.024, d_{\rm GAIA}= 43.02\pm 0.04$~pc).

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arXiv2020

$\textit{Gaia}$ white dwarfs within 40 pc I: spectroscopic observations of new candidates

We present a spectroscopic survey of 230 white dwarf candidates within 40 pc of the Sun from the William Herschel Telescope and Gran Telescopio Canarias. All candidates were selected from $\textit{Gaia}$ Data Release 2 (DR2) and in almost all cases had no prior spectroscopic classifications. We find a total of 191 confirmed white dwarfs and 39 main-sequence star contaminants. The majority of stellar remnants in the sample are relatively cool ($\langle T_{\rm eff} \rangle$ = 6200 K), showing either hydrogen Balmer lines or a featureless spectrum, corresponding to 89 DA and 76 DC white dwarfs, respectively. We also recover two DBA white dwarfs and 9--10 magnetic remnants. We find two carbon-bearing DQ stars and 14 new metal-rich white dwarfs. This includes the possible detection of the first ultra-cool white dwarf with metal lines. We describe three DZ stars for which we find at least four different metal species, including one which is strongly Fe- and Ni-rich, indicative of the accretion of a planetesimal with core-Earth composition. We find one extremely massive (1.31 $\pm$ 0.01 M$_{\odot}$) DA white dwarf showing weak Balmer lines, possibly indicating stellar magnetism. Another white dwarf shows strong Balmer line emission but no infrared excess, suggesting a low-mass sub-stellar companion. High spectroscopic completeness ($>$99%) has now been reached for $\textit{Gaia}$ DR2 sources within 40 pc sample, in the northern hemisphere ($δ>$ 0 deg) and located on the white dwarf cooling track in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. A statistical study of the full northern sample is presented in a companion paper.

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arXiv2014

A population synthesis study of the luminosity function of hot white dwarfs

We present a coherent and detailed Monte Carlo simulation of the population of hot white dwarfs. We assess the statistical significance of the hot end of the white dwarf luminosity function and the role played by the bolometric corrections of hydrogen-rich white dwarfs at high effective temperatures. We use the most up-to-date stellar evolutionary models and implement a full description of the observational selection biases to obtain realistic simulations of the observed white dwarf population. Our theoretical results are compared with the luminosity function of hot white dwarfs obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), for both DA and non-DA white dwarfs. We find that the theoretical results are in excellent agreement with the observational data for the population of white dwarfs with hydrogen deficient atmospheres (non-DA white dwarfs). For the population of white dwarfs with hydrogen-rich atmospheres (white dwarfs of the DA class), our simulations show some discrepancies with the observations for the brightest luminosity bins. These discrepancies can be attributed to the way in which the masses of the white dwarfs contributing to this luminosity bin have been computed, as most of them have masses smaller than the theoretical lower limit for carbon-oxygen white dwarfs. We conclude that the way in which the observational luminosity function of hot white dwarfs is obtained is very sensitive to the particular implementation of the method used to derive the masses of the sample. We also provide a revised luminosity function for hot white dwarfs with hydrogen-rich atmospheres.

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arXiv2012

SDSS DR7 White Dwarf Catalog

We present a new catalog of spectroscopically-confirmed white dwarf stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 spectroscopic catalog. We find 20,407 white dwarf spectra, representing 19,712 stars, and provide atmospheric model fits to 14,120 DA and 1011 DB white dwarf spectra from 12,843 and 923 stars, respectively. These numbers represent a more than factor of two increase in the total number of white dwarf stars from the previous SDSS white dwarf catalog based on DR4 data. Our distribution of subtypes varies from previous catalogs due to our more conservative, manual classifications of each star in our catalog, supplementing our automatic fits. In particular, we find a large number of magnetic white dwarf stars whose small Zeeman splittings mimic increased Stark broadening that would otherwise result in an overestimated log(g) if fit as a non-magnetic white dwarf. We calculate mean DA and DB masses for our clean, non-magnetic sample and find the DB mean mass is statistically larger than that for the DAs.

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arXiv2012

Monte Carlo simulations of the luminosity function of hot white dwarfs

We present a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of the population of the hot branch of the white dwarf luminosity function. We used the most up-to-date stellar evolutionary models and we implemented a full description of the observational selection biases. Our theoretical results are compared with the luminosity function of hot white dwarfs obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), for both DA and non-DA white dwarfs. For non-DA white dwarfs we find an excellent agreement with the observational data, while for DA white dwarfs our simulations show some discrepancies with the observations for the brightest luminosity bins, those corresponding to L>= 10 L_sun.

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arXiv2012

Common Proper Motion Wide White Dwarf Binaries Selected From The Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Wide binaries made up of two white dwarfs (WDs) receive far less attention than their tight counterparts. However, our tests using the binary population synthesis code {\tt StarTrack} indicate that, for any set of reasonable initial conditions, there exists a significant observable population of double white dwarfs (WDWDs) with orbital separations of 10$^2$ to 10$^5$ AU. We adapt the technique of Dhital et al.\ to search for candidate common proper motion WD companions separated by $<10\amin$ around the $>$12,000 spectroscopically confirmed hydrogen-atmosphere WDs recently identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Using two techniques to separate random alignments from high-confidence pairs, we find nine new high-probability wide WDWDs and confirm three previously identified candidate wide WDWDs. This brings the number of known wide WDWDs to 45; our new pairs are a significant addition to the sample, especially at small proper motions ($<$200 mas/yr) and large angular separations ($>$10\asec). Spectroscopic follow-up and an extension of this method to a larger, photometrically selected set of SDSS WDs may eventually produce a large enough dataset for WDWDs to realize their full potential as testbeds for theories of stellar evolution.

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arXiv2012

Empirical Determination of Convection Parameters in White Dwarfs I : Whole Earth Telescope Observations of EC14012-1446

We report on analysis of 308.3 hrs of high speed photometry targeting the pulsating DA white dwarf EC14012-1446. The data were acquired with the Whole Earth Telescope (WET) during the 2008 international observing run XCOV26. The Fourier transform of the light curve contains 19 independent frequencies and numerous combination frequencies. The dominant peaks are 1633.907, 1887.404, and 2504.897 microHz. Our analysis of the combination amplitudes reveals that the parent frequencies are consistent with modes of spherical degree l=1. The combination amplitudes also provide m identifications for the largest amplitude parent frequencies. Our seismology analysis, which includes 2004--2007 archival data, confirms these identifications, provides constraints on additional frequencies, and finds an average period spacing of 41 s. Building on this foundation, we present nonlinear fits to high signal-to-noise light curves from the SOAR 4.1m, McDonald 2.1m, and KPNO 2m telescopes. The fits indicate a time-averaged convective response timescale of 99.4 +/- 17 s, a temperature exponent 85 +/- 6.2 and an inclination angle of 32.9 +/- 3.2 degrees. We present our current empirical map of the convective response timescale across the DA instability strip.

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arXiv2012

The ELM Survey. IV. 24 White Dwarf Merger Systems

We present new radial velocity and X-ray observations of extremely low-mass (ELM, 0.2 Msol) white dwarf candidates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 area. We identify seven new binary systems with 1-18 h orbital periods. Five of the systems will merge due to gravitational wave radiation within 10 Gyr, bringing the total number of merger systems found in the ELM Survey to 24. The ELM Survey has now quintupled the known merger white dwarf population. It has also discovered the eight shortest period detached binary white dwarf systems currently known. We discuss the characteristics of the merger and non-merger systems observed in the ELM Survey, including their future evolution. About half of the systems have extreme mass ratios. These are the progenitors of the AM Canum Venaticorum systems and supernovae .Ia. The remaining targets will lead to the formation of extreme helium stars, subdwarfs, or massive white dwarfs. We identify three targets that are excellent gravitational wave sources. These should be detected by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)-like missions within the first year of operation. The remaining targets are important indicators of what the Galactic foreground may look like for gravitational wave observatories.

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arXiv2011

The Shortest Period Detached Binary White Dwarf System

We identify SDSS J010657.39-100003.3 (hereafter J0106-1000) as the shortest period detached binary white dwarf (WD) system currently known. We targeted J0106-1000 as part of our radial velocity program to search for companions around known extremely low-mass (ELM, ~ 0.2 Msol) WDs using the 6.5m MMT. We detect peak-to-peak radial velocity variations of 740 km/s with an orbital period of 39.1 min. The mass function and optical photometry rule out a main-sequence star companion. Follow-up high-speed photometric observations obtained at the McDonald 2.1m telescope reveal ellipsoidal variations from the distorted primary but no eclipses. This is the first example of a tidally distorted WD. Modeling the lightcurve, we constrain the inclination angle of the system to be 67 +- 13 deg. J0106-1000 contains a pair of WDs (0.17 Msol primary + 0.43 Msol invisible secondary) at a separation of 0.32 Rsol. The two WDs will merge in 37 Myr and most likely form a core He-burning single subdwarf star. J0106-1000 is the shortest timescale merger system currently known. The gravitational wave strain from J0106-1000 is at the detection limit of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). However, accurate ephemeris and orbital period measurements may enable LISA to detect J0106-1000 above the Galactic background noise.

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arXiv2010

Discovery of eclipsing white dwarf systems in a search for Earth-size companions

Although white dwarfs are believed to be the end point of most stellar evolution, unlike main sequence stars, they have not yet been the subject of dedicated time-domain surveys for exoplanets. We discuss how their size and distinctive colour make them excellent targets for wide-field searches for exoplanets. In particular, we note that planets of Earth-size can give rise to multi-magnitude eclipses of massive white dwarfs. Such a large signal is almost unmistakable and would be detectable even with very low-precision photometry. For objects of smaller size, the high accuracy photometry currently being used to detect Super-Earth and smaller planets transiting Sun-sized stars, is capable of revealing minor planets down to R~100km as they transit white dwarfs. Such observations can be used to test current evidence for asteroid-size objects being the cause for dust rings which have recently been observed for a number of white dwarfs. No other current exoplanet search method is capable of detecting such exo-asteroids. As an initial test of this search strategy, we combine synoptic data from the Catalina Sky Survey with multi-colour photometry and spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to search ~12,000 white dwarf lightcurves for eclipsing events. We find 20 new eclipsing white dwarf binary systems with low-mass companions. This doubles the number of known eclipsing white dwarfs and is expected to enable the determination of accurate white dwarf radii. Three of the discoveries have radii consistent with substellar systems and show no evidence of flux from the eclipsing object in their SDSS optical spectra, or near-IR data.

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arXiv2010

New developments of the ZZ Ceti instability strip: The discovery of eleven new variables

Using the SOAR 4.1 m telescope, we report on the discovery of low amplitude pulsations for three stars previously reported as Not-Observed-to-Vary (NOV) by Mukadam et al. (2004) and Mullally et al. (2005), which are inside the ZZ Ceti instability strip. With the two pulsators discovered by Castanheira et al. (2007), we have now found variability in a total of five stars previously reported as NOVs. We also report the variability of eight new pulsating stars, not previously observed, bringing the total number of known ZZ Ceti stars to 148. In addition, we lowered the detection limit for ten NOVs located near the edges of the ZZ Ceti instability strip. Our results are consistent with a pure mass dependent ZZ Ceti instability strip.

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arXiv2010

The Discovery of the Most Metal-Rich White Dwarf: Composition of a Tidally Disrupted Extrasolar Dwarf Planet

Cool white dwarf stars are usually found to have an outer atmosphere that is practically pure in hydrogen or helium. However, a small fraction have traces of heavy elements that must originate from the accretion of extrinsic material, most probably circumstellar matter. Upon examining thousands of Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra, we discovered that the helium-atmosphere white dwarf SDSS J073842.56+183509.6 shows the most severe metal pollution ever seen in the outermost layers of such stars. We present here a quantitative analysis of this exciting star by combining high S/N follow-up spectroscopic and photometric observations with model atmospheres and evolutionary models. We determine the global structural properties of our target star, as well as the abundances of the most significant pollutants in its atmosphere, i.e., H, O, Na, Mg, Si, Ca, and Fe. The relative abundances of these elements imply that the source of the accreted material has a composition similar to that of Bulk Earth. We also report the signature of a circumstellar disk revealed through a large infrared excess in JHK photometry. Combined with our inferred estimate of the mass of the accreted material, this strongly suggests that we are witnessing the remains of a tidally disrupted extrasolar body that was as large as Ceres.

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arXiv2009

A Radio Search For Pulsar Companions To SDSS Low-Mass White Dwarfs

We have conducted a search for pulsar companions to 15 low-mass white dwarfs (LMWDs; M < 0.4 M_Sun) at 820 MHz with the NRAO Green Bank Telescope (GBT). These LMWDs were spectroscopically identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and do not show the photometric excess or spectroscopic signature associated with a companion in their discovery data. However, LMWDs are believed to evolve in binary systems and to have either a more massive WD or a neutron star as a companion. Indeed, evolutionary models of low-mass X-ray binaries, the precursors of millisecond pulsars (MSPs), produce significant numbers of LMWDs (e.g., Benvenuto & De Vito 2005), suggesting that the SDSS LMWDs may have neutron star companions. No convincing pulsar signal is detected in our data. This is consistent with the findings of van Leeuwen et al. (2007), who conducted a GBT search for radio pulsations at 340 MHz from unseen companions to eight SDSS WDs (five are still considered LMWDs; the three others are now classified as "ordinary" WDs). We discuss the constraints our non-detections place on the probability P_MSP that the companion to a given LMWD is a radio pulsar in the context of the luminosity and acceleration limits of our search; we find that P_MSP < 10 +4 -2 %.

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arXiv2008

SDSS White Dwarf mass distribution at low effective temperatures

The DA white dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, as analyzed in the papers for Data Releases 1 and 4, show an increase in surface gravity towards lower effective temperatures below 11500 K. We study the various possible explanations of this effect, from a real increase of the masses to uncertainties or deficiencies of the atmospheric models. No definite answer is found but the tentative conclusion is that it is most likely the current description of convection in the framework of the mixing-length approximation, which leads to this effect.

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arXiv2008

2006 Whole Earth Telescope Observations of GD358: A New Look at the Prototype DBV

We report on the analysis of 436.1 hrs of nearly continuous high-speed photometry on the pulsating DB white dwarf GD358 acquired with the Whole Earth Telescope (WET) during the 2006 international observing run, designated XCOV25. The Fourier transform (FT) of the light curve contains power between 1000 to 4000 microHz, with the dominant peak at 1234 microHz. We find 27 independent frequencies distributed in 10 modes, as well as numerous combination frequencies. Our discussion focuses on a new asteroseismological analysis of GD358, incorporating the 2006 data set and drawing on 24 years of archival observations. Our results reveal that, while the general frequency locations of the identified modes are consistent throughout the years, the multiplet structure is complex and cannot be interpreted simply as l=1 modes in the limit of slow rotation. The high k multiplets exhibit significant variability in structure, amplitude and frequency. Any identification of the m components for the high k multiplets is highly suspect. The k=9 and 8 modes typically do show triplet structure more consistent with theoretical expectations. The frequencies and amplitudes exhibit some variability, but much less than the high k modes. Analysis of the k=9 and 8 multiplet splittings from 1990 to 2008 reveal a long-term change in multiplet splittings coinciding with the 1996 "sforzando" event, where GD358 dramatically altered its pulsation characteristics on a timescale of hours. We explore potential implications, including the possible connections between convection and/or magnetic fields and pulsations. We suggest future investigations, including theoretical investigations of the relationship between magnetic fields, pulsation, growth rates, and convection.

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arXiv2008

Lessons Learned from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Operations

Astronomy is changing. Large projects, large collaborations, and large budgets are becoming the norm. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one example of this new astronomy, and in operating the original survey, we put in place and learned many valuable operating principles. Scientists sometimes have the tendency to invent everything themselves but when budgets are large, deadlines are many, and both are tight, learning from others and applying it appropriately can make the difference between success and failure. We offer here our experiences well as our thoughts, opinions, and beliefs on what we learned in operating the SDSS.

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