The Galactic White Dwarf Population
Santiago Torres, Roberto Raddi, Alberto Rebassa-Mansergas, Leandro G. Althaus, Maria Camisassa, Tim Cunningham, Camila Damia Rinc\'on, Aina Ferrer i Burjachs, Nicola Gentile Fusillo, Enrique Garc\'ia-Zamora, Anna F. Pala, Steven Parsons, Ingrid Pelisoli, Nicole Reindl

TL;DR
The Gaia mission has vastly expanded our knowledge of nearby white dwarfs, revealing new structures and questions, and emphasizing the importance of spectroscopic data for understanding their physical properties and evolution.
Contribution
This paper highlights the critical role of current and future spectroscopic surveys in characterizing the white dwarf population revealed by Gaia, and discusses future prospects with large telescopes.
Findings
Gaia has provided an unprecedented census of white dwarfs.
Spectroscopic data are essential for understanding white dwarf physics.
Future surveys will enable comprehensive spectroscopic characterization.
Abstract
The ESA Gaia mission has revolutionized our understanding of the white dwarf population, delivering an unprecedented census of these nearby remnants and revealing previously unseen structures in the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. However, while Gaia has expanded the scope of white dwarf astrophysics, it has also exposed new questions related to atmospheric composition, spectral evolution, crystallization, magnetism, and merger-driven pathways. Many of these open problems are encoded in the detailed morphology of the Gaia HR diagram, where precise spectroscopic characterization is essential for interpreting the underlying physical processes. Spectroscopic characterization, obtainable with current and future ESO facilities, can provide the effective temperatures and surface gravities that are required to derive accurate white dwarf masses, cooling ages, and luminosities. These…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstronomy and Astrophysical Research · Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies · Educational Leadership and Practices
