White Dwarfs in Wide Binary Systems as Reliable Age Calibrators
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Rebassa-Mansergas, Alberto Raddi, Roberto Pala, Anna F. Santos-García, Alejandro Torres, Santiago Althaus, Leandro Belloni, Diogo Camisassa, Maria Cunningham, Tim Rincón, Camila Damia Burjachs, Aina Ferrer i García-Zamora, Enrique Hermes, JJ Moss, Adam Parsons, Steven G. Toloza, Odette |
| author_facet | Rebassa-Mansergas, Alberto Raddi, Roberto Pala, Anna F. Santos-García, Alejandro Torres, Santiago Althaus, Leandro Belloni, Diogo Camisassa, Maria Cunningham, Tim Rincón, Camila Damia Burjachs, Aina Ferrer i García-Zamora, Enrique Hermes, JJ Moss, Adam Parsons, Steven G. Toloza, Odette |
| contents | Deriving precise stellar ages is a challenging task. Consequently, age-dependent relations - such as the age-metallicity and age-velocity dispersion relations of the Milky Way, or the age-rotation-activity relation of low-mass stars - are subject to potentially large uncertainties, despite the well-defined trends observed at the population level. White dwarfs, the most common stellar remnants, follow a relatively simple and well-understood cooling process. When found in wide binary systems with main-sequence companions, they can therefore provide the much-needed precise age estimates. The total age of such systems depends not only on the white dwarf cooling time but also on the lifetime of the main-sequence progenitor. Estimating this lifetime requires knowledge of the progenitor mass, which is typically inferred by adopting an initial-to-final mass relation. However, the observational constraints on this relation are still poorly defined, introducing a source of uncertainty in white dwarf age determinations. To mitigate this issue, we focus on a large sample of massive white dwarfs (>~0.7 Msun), for which the main-sequence progenitor lifetime is negligible. These white dwarfs are intrinsically faint and therefore require specialized facilities for adequate follow-up observations. In this white paper, we outline the instrumentation requirements needed to observe the forthcoming population of massive white dwarfs in our Galaxy. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_14769 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | White Dwarfs in Wide Binary Systems as Reliable Age Calibrators Rebassa-Mansergas, Alberto Raddi, Roberto Pala, Anna F. Santos-García, Alejandro Torres, Santiago Althaus, Leandro Belloni, Diogo Camisassa, Maria Cunningham, Tim Rincón, Camila Damia Burjachs, Aina Ferrer i García-Zamora, Enrique Hermes, JJ Moss, Adam Parsons, Steven G. Toloza, Odette Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Deriving precise stellar ages is a challenging task. Consequently, age-dependent relations - such as the age-metallicity and age-velocity dispersion relations of the Milky Way, or the age-rotation-activity relation of low-mass stars - are subject to potentially large uncertainties, despite the well-defined trends observed at the population level. White dwarfs, the most common stellar remnants, follow a relatively simple and well-understood cooling process. When found in wide binary systems with main-sequence companions, they can therefore provide the much-needed precise age estimates. The total age of such systems depends not only on the white dwarf cooling time but also on the lifetime of the main-sequence progenitor. Estimating this lifetime requires knowledge of the progenitor mass, which is typically inferred by adopting an initial-to-final mass relation. However, the observational constraints on this relation are still poorly defined, introducing a source of uncertainty in white dwarf age determinations. To mitigate this issue, we focus on a large sample of massive white dwarfs (>~0.7 Msun), for which the main-sequence progenitor lifetime is negligible. These white dwarfs are intrinsically faint and therefore require specialized facilities for adequate follow-up observations. In this white paper, we outline the instrumentation requirements needed to observe the forthcoming population of massive white dwarfs in our Galaxy. |
| title | White Dwarfs in Wide Binary Systems as Reliable Age Calibrators |
| topic | Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies Solar and Stellar Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.14769 |