Formation and evolution of hybrid He-CO white dwarfs and their properties

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation, structure, and evolution of hybrid Helium-Carbon Oxygen white dwarfs, revealing their prevalence in young binary systems and potential role in supernova explosions.

Contribution

It provides detailed models of hybrid HeCO white dwarfs, their properties, and their significance in binary evolution and supernova progenitors.

Findings

Hybrid HeCO WDs can have 5-25% He and 75-95% CO in their mass.

They are the majority of young (<2 Gyr) WDs in binaries.

Hybrid WDs may contribute to sub-Chandrasekhar supernovae.

Abstract

White dwarfs (WDs) are the stellar core remnants of low mass stars. They are typically divided into three main composition groups: Oxygen Neon (ONe), Carbon Oxygen (CO) and Helium (He) WDs. The evolution of binary systems can significantly change the evolution of the binary stellar components. In particular, striping the envelope of an evolved star can give rise to a core remnant, which can later evolve into a WD with significantly different composition. Here we focus on the formation and evolution of hybrid HeCO WDs. We follow the formation and stellar evolution of such WDs for a range of initial conditions and provide their detailed structure, mass-radius relation and luminosity temperature evolution. We find that both low mass WDs (< 0.45M , typically thought to be He WDs) and intermediate-mass WDs (0.45 < MWD < 0.7, typically thought to be CO WDs) could in fact be hybrid HeCO WDs, with 5-25 (75 -95)% of their mass in He (CO). We use population synthesis calculations to infer the birth rate and properties of such WDs. We find that hybrid HeCO WD comprise the majority of young (< 2Gyr) WDs in binaries, but are more rare among older WDs in binaries. The high frequency and large He content of such WDs could have an important role in WD WD mergers, and may give rise to sub Chandrasekhar thermonuclear supernova explosions.