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White dwarfs as astrophysical probes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

Jasonjot S. Kalirai
Jasonjot S. Kalirai*
Affiliation:
Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore MD, 21231 email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Much of our knowledge regarding the ages of stars derives from our understanding of the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram. The diagram is typically dominated by hydrogen burning main-sequence stars, which historically, have been used to establish our most fundamental knowledge of stellar ages and evolution. In this brief article, I highlight how deep ground and space based imaging can uncover the stellar remnants of these hydrogen burning stars, white dwarfs. We have followed up our initial discovery of several large white dwarf populations in nearby star clusters with multiobject spectrographs. The spectroscopy allows us to characterize the properties of the remnant stars (e.g., mass, temperature, and age), which are in turn used to shed new light on fundamental astrophysical problems. Specifically, we estimate the ages of the Milky Way disk and halo, provide the inputs needed to calculate the chemical evolution of galaxies, and re-iterate the important role of HB stars in producing the UV-upturn seen in elliptical galaxies.

Keywords

Galaxy: open clusters and associations: individual (NGC 7789, NGC 6819, and NGC 6791) – stars: evolution – techniques: photometricspectroscopic – white dwarfs
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 4 , Symposium S258: The Ages of Stars , October 2008 , pp. 299 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2009

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