Monte Carlo simulations of the luminosity function of hot white dwarfs

TL;DR

This paper uses Monte Carlo simulations with updated models and bias corrections to study the luminosity function of hot white dwarfs, comparing results with SDSS data for different white dwarf types.

Contribution

It provides a detailed simulation approach incorporating observational biases and compares theoretical predictions with SDSS data for hot white dwarfs.

Findings

Excellent agreement for non-DA white dwarfs

Discrepancies for bright DA white dwarfs with L >= 10 L_sun

Validates the simulation method for population studies

Abstract

We present a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of the population of the hot branch of the white dwarf luminosity function. We used the most up-to-date stellar evolutionary models and we implemented a full description of the observational selection biases. Our theoretical results are compared with the luminosity function of hot white dwarfs obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), for both DA and non-DA white dwarfs. For non-DA white dwarfs we find an excellent agreement with the observational data, while for DA white dwarfs our simulations show some discrepancies with the observations for the brightest luminosity bins, those corresponding to L>= 10 L_sun.