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White dwarf cosmochronology in the solar neighborhood
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Tremblay, Pier-Emmanuel, Kalirai, J. S., Soderblom, D. R., Cignoni, M. and Cummings, J. (2014) White dwarf cosmochronology in the solar neighborhood. The Astrophysical Journal, 791 (2). 92. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/791/2/92 ISSN 0004-637X.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/791/2/92
Abstract
The study of the stellar formation history in the solar neighborhood is a powerful technique to recover information about the early stages and evolution of the Milky Way. We present a new method that consists of directly probing the formation history from the nearby stellar remnants. We rely on the volume complete sample of white dwarfs within 20 pc, where accurate cooling ages and masses have been determined. The well characterized initial-final mass relation is employed in order to recover the initial masses (1 lesssim M initial/M ☉ lesssim 8) and total ages for the local degenerate sample. We correct for moderate biases that are necessary to transform our results to a global stellar formation rate, which can be compared to similar studies based on the properties of main-sequence stars in the solar neighborhood. Our method provides precise formation rates for all ages except in very recent times, and the results suggest an enhanced formation rate for the solar neighborhood in the last 5 Gyr compared to the range 5 < Age (Gyr) < 10. Furthermore, the observed total age of ~10 Gyr for the oldest white dwarfs in the local sample is consistent with the early seminal studies that have determined the age of the Galactic disk from stellar remnants. The main shortcoming of our study is the small size of the local white dwarf sample. However, the presented technique can be applied to larger samples in the future.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy | ||||||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Physics | ||||||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | White dwarf stars, Cosmochronology | ||||||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | The Astrophysical Journal | ||||||||||||
Publisher: | Institute of Physics Publishing, Inc. | ||||||||||||
ISSN: | 0004-637X | ||||||||||||
Official Date: | 31 July 2014 | ||||||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 791 | ||||||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||||||
Article Number: | 92 | ||||||||||||
DOI: | 10.1088/0004-637X/791/2/92 | ||||||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||||||
Copyright Holders: | C 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. | ||||||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 18 January 2019 | ||||||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 18 January 2019 | ||||||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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