Deriving the Age of an Individual WD: SDSS, Bok, USNO, and Bayes

Abstract

We report on ancient white dwarfs found in the proper motion survey we are conducting at the Bok and USNO telescopes. To date we have surveyed approximately 2800 square degrees of sky and identified numerous WDs with Teff < or = 6000. A subset of these WDs are high velocity objects that most likely belong to the Galactic halo population. Where possible, we are acquiring trigonometric parallaxes to constrain the WD masses. We apply a new Bayesian modeling approach to these WDs that consistently incorporates precursor evolutionary timescales, the initial-final mass relation, WD interior and atmosphere models, and uses the observed magnitudes, distances, etc. to derive the distribution of WD age as a function of uncertainties in the observational parameters.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA536216

Entities

People

  • Bill Jefferys
  • Elizabeth Jeffery
  • Hugh H. Harris
  • Jeff Munn
  • Jim Liebert
  • John Thorstensen
  • Kurtis Williams
  • Mukremin Kilic
  • Steven Degennaro
  • Ted Von Hippel

Organizations

  • United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Age Distribution
  • Atmosphere Models
  • Atmospheres
  • Bayesian Networks
  • Data Analysis
  • Information Science
  • Models
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Observatories
  • Precursors
  • Probability Distributions
  • Space Sciences
  • Stellar Evolution
  • Surveys
  • Telescopes
  • United States
  • Universities

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Astronomy/Astrophysics

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Bayesian Inference
  • Space