GALEX catalogs of UV sources: statistical properties and sample science applications: hot white dwarfs in the Milky Way

By L. Bianchi, J. Herald, B. Efremova, L. Girardi, A. Zabot, P. Marigo, A. Conti, B. Shiao. 2011

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We describe the content and properties of UV source catalogs from GALEX’s All-Sky Imaging Survey (AIS, 5σ depth ≈19.9(FUV)/20.8(NUV) mag, in the AB system) and Medium-depth Imaging Survey (MIS, 5σ depth ≈22.6(FUV)/22.7(NUV) mag), constructed by Bianchi L., et al.: Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. (2010, in press). The catalogs contain 65.3/12.6 million (AIS/MIS) unique UV sources with photometric error in NUV less than 0.5 mag, over 21 435(AIS)/1579(MIS) square degrees. Matched optical data from GSC-II provide additional B, R, I photometry for the brightest sources, and SDSS provides u g r i z photometry over 7325(AIS)/1103(MIS) square degrees overlap areas. We discuss statistical properties that are relevant for understanding sample selection biases and completeness, in potential science applications of these catalogs. The FUV (1344–1786 Å) and NUV (1771–2831 Å) photometry uniquely enable selection of the hottest stellar objects, in particular hot white dwarfs (WD), which are elusive at optical wavelengths because of their hot temperatures and faint luminosities. From the GALEX-SDSS matched sources we selected ∼40 000 Milky Way (MW) stars hotter than about 18 000 K (FUV-NUV < −0.13). Their density increases towards low Galactic latitudes, but drops in the MW disk due to dust extinction. The hot-WD density at different Galactic latitudes, analyzed with Milky Way models, constrains the Initial-Final Mass Relation (IFMR), relevant for understanding the yield of chemical elements from intermediate-mass stars and the chemical enrichment of the Galaxy.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/712ec72a52404513380c2ce73b4bea55547ba955

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Citations in the corpus

The SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts – II. New FRB discoveries and their follow-up. (2017, background): “This source is also present in the GALEX survey (Bianchi et al. 2011, GALEX J223831.”
Revised Catalog of GALEX Ultraviolet Sources. I. The All-Sky Survey: GUVcat_AIS (2017, methodology): “As 17 The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 230:24 (24pp), 2017 June Bianchi, Shiao, & Thilker noted by Bianchi et al. (2011a, 2011b) and Bianchi (2011), the GALEX FUV–NUV color is almost reddening-free, for Milky Way typical dust (see also Table 1), and therefore it could be used to select…”
Binary Companions of Evolved Stars in APOGEE DR14: Search Method and Catalog of ∼5000 Companions (2018, background): “In the right panel, one system appears right on the limit of being an interacting binary (qmin≈0.5), but has no significant UV flux (GALEX DR5; Bianchi et al. 2011).”