Mass Distribution and Luminosity Function of White Dwarfs

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Ever since Graham’s Strömgren photometry (1972) demonstrated the existence of a single well defined cooling sequence of DA white dwarfs the question of the mass dispersion (or the width of the number-mass distribution) has been in the foreground of my studies (Weidemann, 1970, 1977).Indeed it turned out that the shape of the white dwarf mass distribution provides strong constraints on the theory of stellar evolution with mass loss, a fact which will be demonstrated again in the following lecture. It therefore seems worthwhile to dwell in some detail on the methods of its determination. For the benefit of the non-specialists I shall first present some of the historical results and then continue to discuss the present situation.