1. A survey for radio emission from white dwarfs in the VLA Sky Survey.
- Author
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Pelisoli, Ingrid, Chomiuk, Laura, Strader, Jay, Marsh, T R, Aydi, Elias, Dage, Kristen C, Kyer, Rebecca, Molina, Isabella, Panurach, Teresa, Urquhart, Ryan, Maccarone, Thomas J, Rich, R Michael, Rodriguez, Antonio C, Breedt, E, Brown, A J, Dhillon, V S, Dyer, M J, Gaensicke, Boris T, Garbutt, J A, and Green, M J
- Subjects
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ASTRONOMICAL surveys , *WHITE dwarf stars , *OPTICAL resolution , *PLANETARY systems , *OPTICAL images , *LEGAL evidence - Abstract
Radio emission has been detected from tens of white dwarfs, in particular in accreting systems. Additionally, radio emission has been predicted as a possible outcome of a planetary system around a white dwarf. We searched for 3 GHz radio continuum emission in 846 000 candidate white dwarfs previously identified in Gaia using the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) Epoch 1 Quick Look Catalogue. We identified 13 candidate white dwarfs with a counterpart in VLASS within 2 arcsec. Five of those were found not to be white dwarfs in follow-up or archival spectroscopy, whereas seven others were found to be chance alignments with a background source in higher resolution optical or radio images. The remaining source, WDJ204259.71+152108.06, is found to be a white dwarf and M-dwarf binary with an orbital period of 4.1 d and long-term stochastic optical variability, as well as luminous radio and X-ray emission. For this binary, we find no direct evidence of a background contaminant, and a chance alignment probability of only ≈2 per cent. However, other evidence points to the possibility of an unfortunate chance alignment with a background radio and X-ray emitting quasar, including an unusually poor Gaia DR3 astrometric solution for this source. With at most one possible radio emitting white dwarf found, we conclude that strong (≳1–3 mJy) radio emission from white dwarfs in the 3 GHz band is virtually non-existent outside of interacting binaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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