Bibcode
Parsons, S. G.; Gänsicke, B. T.; Marsh, T. R.; Ashley, R. P.; Bours, M. C. P.; Breedt, E.; Burleigh, M. R.; Copperwheat, C. M.; Dhillon, V. S.; Green, M.; Hardy, L. K.; Hermes, J. J.; Irawati, P.; Kerry, P.; Littlefair, S. P.; McAllister, M. J.; Rattanasoon, S.; Rebassa-Mansergas, A.; Sahman, D. I.; Schreiber, M. R.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 470, Issue 4, p.4473-4492
Advertised on:
10
2017
Citations
90
Refereed citations
82
Description
We present high-precision, model-independent, mass and radius
measurements for 16 white dwarfs in detached eclipsing binaries and
combine these with previously published data to test the theoretical
white dwarf mass-radius relationship. We reach a mean precision of 2.4
per cent in mass and 2.7 per cent in radius, with our best measurements
reaching a precision of 0.3 per cent in mass and 0.5 per cent in radius.
We find excellent agreement between the measured and predicted radii
across a wide range of masses and temperatures. We also find the radii
of all white dwarfs with masses less than 0.48 M⊙ to be
fully consistent with helium core models, but they are on average 9 per
cent larger than those of carbon-oxygen core models. In contrast, white
dwarfs with masses larger than 0.52 M⊙ all have radii
consistent with carbon-oxygen core models. Moreover, we find that all
but one of the white dwarfs in our sample have radii consistent with
possessing thick surface hydrogen envelopes (10-5 ≥
MH/MWD ≥ 10-4), implying that the
surface hydrogen layers of these white dwarfs are not obviously affected
by common envelope evolution.
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