Searching for magnetic fields in featureless white dwarfs with the DIPOL-UF polarimeter at the Nordic Optical Telescope

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Autori principali: Berdyugin, A., Landstreet, J. D., Bagnulo, S., Piirola, V., Berdyugina, S. V.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Berdyugin, A.
Landstreet, J. D.
Bagnulo, S.
Piirola, V.
Berdyugina, S. V.
author_facet Berdyugin, A.
Landstreet, J. D.
Bagnulo, S.
Piirola, V.
Berdyugina, S. V.
contents About 20% of the white dwarfs possess a magnetic field that may be detected by the splitting and/or polarization of their spectral lines. As they cool, the effective temperatures of the white dwarfs becomes so low that no spectral lines can be seen in the visible wavelength range. If their atmospheres are not polluted by the debris of a planetary system, these cool white dwarfs have featureless optical spectra. Until quite recently, very little was known about the incidence of magnetic fields in these objects. However, when observed with polarimetric techniques, a significant number of featureless white dwarfs reveal strong magnetic fields in their optical continuum spectra. Measuring the occurrence rate and strength of magnetic fields in old white dwarfs may help us to understand how these fields are generated and evolve. We report the results of an ongoing survey of cool white dwarfs with the high-precision broad-band polarimeter DIPOL-UF, which is deployed at the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, Spain. This survey has led to the firm discovery of 13 cool magnetic white dwarfs in the solar neighborhood so far, including six new detections that we report in this paper.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_03614
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Searching for magnetic fields in featureless white dwarfs with the DIPOL-UF polarimeter at the Nordic Optical Telescope
Berdyugin, A.
Landstreet, J. D.
Bagnulo, S.
Piirola, V.
Berdyugina, S. V.
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
About 20% of the white dwarfs possess a magnetic field that may be detected by the splitting and/or polarization of their spectral lines. As they cool, the effective temperatures of the white dwarfs becomes so low that no spectral lines can be seen in the visible wavelength range. If their atmospheres are not polluted by the debris of a planetary system, these cool white dwarfs have featureless optical spectra. Until quite recently, very little was known about the incidence of magnetic fields in these objects. However, when observed with polarimetric techniques, a significant number of featureless white dwarfs reveal strong magnetic fields in their optical continuum spectra. Measuring the occurrence rate and strength of magnetic fields in old white dwarfs may help us to understand how these fields are generated and evolve. We report the results of an ongoing survey of cool white dwarfs with the high-precision broad-band polarimeter DIPOL-UF, which is deployed at the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, Spain. This survey has led to the firm discovery of 13 cool magnetic white dwarfs in the solar neighborhood so far, including six new detections that we report in this paper.
title Searching for magnetic fields in featureless white dwarfs with the DIPOL-UF polarimeter at the Nordic Optical Telescope
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.03614