The initial–final mass relationship of white dwarfs revisited: effect on the luminosity function and mass distribution

By S. Catalan, Jordi Isern, E. García–Berro, I. Ribas. 2008

191 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The initial-final mass relationship connects the mass of a white dwarf with the mass of its progenitor in the main-sequence. Although this function is of fundamental importance to several fields in modern astrophysics, it is not well constrained either from the theoretical or the observational points of view. In this work we revise the present semi-empirical initial-final mass relationship by re-evaluating the available data. The distribution obtained from grouping all our results presents a considerable dispersion, which is larger than the uncertainties. We have carried out a weighted least-squares linear fit of these data and a careful analysis to give some clues on the dependence of this relationship on some parameters such as metallicity or rotation. The semiempirical initial-final mass relationship arising from our study covers the range of initial masses from 1.0 to 6.5 M⊙, including in this way the low-mass domain, poorly studied until recently. Finally, we have also performed a test of the initial-final mass relationship by studying its effect on the luminosity function and on the mass distribution of white dwarfs. This was done by using different initial-final mass relationships from the literature, including the expression derived in this work, and comparing the results obtained with the observational data from the Palomar Green Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We find that the semi-empirical initial-final mass relationship derived here gives results in good agreement with the observational data, especially in the case of the white dwarf mass distribution.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b0b643837d0ce81aab0c7b83206db36914a07064

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

The White Dwarf Initial–Final Mass Relation for Progenitor Stars from 0.85 to 7.5 M⊙ (2018, methodology): “In comparison to the IFMRs of Catalán et al. (2008a), Salaris et al. (2009), and Kalirai et al. (2008), this decreased the observed scatter of the IFMR by ∼50%.”
Evolutionary and pulsational properties of white dwarf stars (2010, background): “In this way arelation between initial and final masses can be constructed — see, Catalán et al. (2008), Casewell et al. (2009) and Salaris et al. (2009) for recent determinations of the initial and final masses as inferred from white dwarfs in stellar clusters.”
AGaiaData Release 2 catalogue of white dwarfs and a comparison with SDSS (2018, background): “…(Wegg & Phinney 2012), mass distribution (Bergeron et al. 1992; Liebert et al. 2005; Falcon et al. 2010; Tremblay et al. 2013, 2016), and age or luminosity distributions (Catalán et al. 2008; Giammichele et al. 2012; Tremblay et al. 2014; Rebassa-Mansergas et al. 2015; Kilic et al. 2017).”
Super and massive AGB stars - IV. Final fates - Initial to final mass relation (2014, unknown): “The IFMRs compared are those by Weidemann (2000), Ferrario et al. (2005), Catalán et al. (2008), Williams et al. (2009), Kalirai et al. (2008) and Salaris et al. (2009), with the majority of these observationally based IFMRS derived from studies of WDs within star clusters.”
MESA ISOCHRONES AND STELLAR TRACKS (MIST). I. SOLAR-SCALED MODELS (2016, background): “Moreover, the thickness of the hydrogen and helium layer assumed in the WD spectral model can also have a non-negligible effect on the inferred cooling age and thus the initial mass (Prada Moroni & Straniero 2002; Catalán et al. 2008a).”
The frequency of planetary debris around young white dwarfs (2014, background): “The white dwarf mass relates to the mass of its progenitor via the initial-mass to final-mass relation (Weidemann 1984, 2000; Catalán et al. 2008; Kalirai et al. 2008; Williams et al. 2009; Dobbie et al. 2009).”
Spectroscopic analysis of DA white dwarfs with 3D model atmospheres (2013, background): “However, current initial-final mass relations (Catalán et al. 2008; Renedo et al. 2010) imply that this would be a very small effect on the mean mass as a function of cooling age.”
NEW COOLING SEQUENCES FOR OLD WHITE DWARFS (2010, background): “…the observational results of Kalirai et al. (2008)—with their corresponding error bars—which correspond to metallicities very close to the solar metallicity—filled and open circles—and the results for individual white dwarfs in common proper motion pairs of Catalán et al. (2008a)—solid triangles.”
Post common envelope binaries from SDSS - XI. The white dwarf mass distributions of CVs and pre-CVs (2011, methodology): “…left panel we compare the initial-to-final mass (IFM) of the WDs in our pre-CV sample (crosses) with different theoretical and empirical IFM relations for single-star evolution (grey lines, from top to bottom: Catalán et al. 2008, Williams et al. 2009, Casewell et al. 2009, and Weidemann 2000).”
Axions and the Cooling of White Dwarf Stars (2008, methodology): “Figure 4 displays the behavior of χ2 as a function of the mass of the axion in our fiducial case (solid line) and in the case in which we use the initial-final mass relationship of Wood (1992), which is marginally compatible with the white dwarf mass distribution (Catalán et al. 2008).”