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Testing the white dwarf mass-radius relationship with eclipsing binaries.
- Source :
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . Oct2017, Vol. 470 Issue 4, p4473-4492. 20p. - Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- We present high-precision, model-independent, mass and radius measurements for 16 white dwarfs in detached eclipsing binaries and combine these with previously published data to test the theoretical white dwarf mass-radius relationship.We reach a mean precision of 2.4 per cent in mass and 2.7 per cent in radius, with our best measurements reaching a precision of 0.3 per cent in mass and 0.5 per cent in radius.We find excellent agreement between the measured and predicted radii across a wide range of masses and temperatures. We also find the radii of all white dwarfs with masses less than 0.48 M☉ to be fully consistent with helium core models, but they are on average 9 per cent larger than those of carbon-oxygen core models. In contrast, white dwarfs with masses larger than 0.52 M☉ all have radii consistent with carbon-oxygen core models. Moreover, we find that all but one of the white dwarfs in our sample have radii consistent with possessing thick surface hydrogen envelopes (10-5 ≥ MH/MWD ≥ 10-4), implying that the surface hydrogen layers of these white dwarfs are not obviously affected by common envelope evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00358711
- Volume :
- 470
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 124829108
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx1522