The 100 pc White Dwarf Sample in the SDSS Footprint II. A New Look at the Spectral Evolution of White Dwarfs

TL;DR

This study enhances the spectroscopic data of 100 pc white dwarfs, revealing new insights into their spectral evolution, atmospheric composition, and cooling processes, with implications for future surveys and missions.

Contribution

It provides an expanded spectroscopic sample, identifies trends in atmospheric composition, and discovers a tight sequence of low-mass DQ white dwarfs, advancing understanding of white dwarf evolution.

Findings

Ultramassive DA white dwarfs are less common below 10,000 K.

The fraction of He-atmosphere white dwarfs increases with decreasing temperature.

A tight sequence of low-mass DQ white dwarfs is identified in color-magnitude diagrams.

Abstract

We increase the spectroscopic completeness of the 100 pc white dwarf sample in the SDSS footprint with 840 additional spectra. Our spectroscopy is 86% complete for white dwarfs hotter than $T_{\rm eff}= 5000$ K, where H$\alpha$ remains visible and provides reliable constraints on the atmospheric composition. We identify 2108 DA white dwarfs with pure hydrogen atmospheres, and show that ultramassive DA white dwarfs with $M\geq1.1~M_{\odot}$ are an order of magnitude less common below 10,000 K. This is consistent with a fraction of them getting stuck on the crystallization sequence due to $^{22}$Ne distillation. In addition, there are no ultramassive DA white dwarfs with $M\geq1.1~M_{\odot}$ and $T_{\rm eff}\leq6000$ K in our sample, likely because Debye cooling makes them rapidly fade away. We detect a significant trend in the fraction of He-atmosphere white dwarfs as a function of temperature; the fraction increases from 9% at 20,000 K to 32% at 6000 K. This provides direct evidence of convective mixing in cool DA white dwarfs. Finally, we detect a relatively tight sequence of low-mass DQ white dwarfs in color-magnitude diagrams for the first time. We discuss the implications of this tight DQ sequence, and conclude with a discussion of the future prospects from the upcoming ULTRASAT mission and the large-scale multi-fiber spectroscopic surveys.