A Deficit of Massive White Dwarfs in Gaia Astrometric Binaries

Na’ama Hallakoun; Sahar Shahaf; Tsevi Mazeh; Silvia Toonen; Sagi Ben-Ami

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ad5e63

A Deficit of Massive White Dwarfs in Gaia Astrometric Binaries

Na’ama Hallakoun^*, Sahar Shahaf, Tsevi Mazeh, Silvia Toonen, Sagi Ben-Ami

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

The third data release of Gaia introduced a large catalog of astrometric binaries, out of which about 3200 are likely main-sequence stars with a white dwarf (WD) companion. These binaries are typically found with orbital separations of ∼1 au, a separation range that was largely unexplored due to observational challenges. Such systems are likely to have undergone a phase of stable mass transfer while the WD progenitor was on the asymptotic giant branch. Here we study the WD mass distribution of a volume-complete sample of binaries with K/M dwarf primaries and orbital separations of ∼1 au. We find that the number of massive WDs relative to the total number of WDs in these systems is smaller by an order of magnitude compared to their occurrence among single WDs in the field. One possible reason can be an implicit selection of the WD mass range if these are indeed post-stable-mass-transfer systems. Another reason can be the lack of merger products in our sample compared to the field, due to the relatively tight orbital separations of these systems. In addition, we find that about 14% of these systems have distant tertiary companions within 1 pc.

Original language	English
Article number	L11
Journal	Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume	970
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ad5e63
Publication status	Published - 20 Jul 2024

Bibliographical note

We thank Boris Gänsicke and Dan Maoz for pointing out that the narrow distribution and lack of a high-mass tail in the mass distribution of DB WDs hints at a merger origin, Cheyanne Shariat for suggesting that some of the systems might have tertiary companions, and the anonymous referee for valuable comments.

The research of S.S. is supported by a Benoziyo prize postdoctoral fellowship. S.B.A. and T.M. acknowledge support from the Israel Ministry of Science grant IMOS 714193-02. S.B.A.'s research is supported by the Peter and Patricia Gruber Award, the Azrieli Foundation, the André Deloro Institute for Advanced Research in Space and Optics, the Willner Family Leadership Institute for the Weizmann Institute of Science, and the Israel Science Foundation grant ISF 714022-02. S.B.A. is the incumbent of the Aryeh and Ido Dissentshik Career Development Chair.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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Cite this

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title = "A Deficit of Massive White Dwarfs in Gaia Astrometric Binaries",

abstract = "The third data release of Gaia introduced a large catalog of astrometric binaries, out of which about 3200 are likely main-sequence stars with a white dwarf (WD) companion. These binaries are typically found with orbital separations of ∼1 au, a separation range that was largely unexplored due to observational challenges. Such systems are likely to have undergone a phase of stable mass transfer while the WD progenitor was on the asymptotic giant branch. Here we study the WD mass distribution of a volume-complete sample of binaries with K/M dwarf primaries and orbital separations of ∼1 au. We find that the number of massive WDs relative to the total number of WDs in these systems is smaller by an order of magnitude compared to their occurrence among single WDs in the field. One possible reason can be an implicit selection of the WD mass range if these are indeed post-stable-mass-transfer systems. Another reason can be the lack of merger products in our sample compared to the field, due to the relatively tight orbital separations of these systems. In addition, we find that about 14% of these systems have distant tertiary companions within 1 pc.",

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A Deficit of Massive White Dwarfs in Gaia Astrometric Binaries

Abstract

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