The Astrophysical Journal

The Astrophysical Journal

Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article
The Astrophysical Journal Volume 664 Number 2 Create an alert RSS this journal

Mukremin Kilic et al. 2007 ApJ 664 1088 doi:10.1086/518735

The Discovery of a Companion to the Lowest Mass White Dwarf*

FREE ISSUE

Mukremin Kilic1, Warren R. Brown2, Carlos Allende Prieto3, M. H. Pinsonneault1 and S. J. Kenyon2

Show affiliations

Tag this article Full text PDF (212 KB) View as HTML

Abstract References Cited By

We report the detection of a radial velocity companion to SDSS J091709.55+463821.8, the lowest mass white dwarf currently known, with M ~ 0.17 Msun. The radial velocity of the white dwarf shows variations with a semi-amplitude of 148.8 ± 6.9 km s-1 and a period of 7.5936 ± 0.0024 hr, which implies a companion mass of M ≥ 0.28 Msun. The lack of evidence of a companion in the optical photometry forces any main-sequence companion to be smaller than 0.1 Msun, hence a low-mass main-sequence star companion is ruled out for this system. The companion is most likely another white dwarf, and we present tentative evidence for an evolutionary scenario that could have produced it. However, a neutron star companion cannot be ruled out, and follow-up radio observations are required to search for a pulsar companion.


Footnote
*  Observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a joint facility of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arizona.
Subject headings

stars: individual (SDSS J091709.55+463821.8); stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs; white dwarfs


Dates

Issue 2 (2007 August 1)

Received 2007 April 3, accepted for publication 2007 April 8



Your last 10 viewed
  1. The Discovery of a Companion to the Lowest Mass White Dwarf

    Mukremin Kilic et al. 2007 ApJ 664 1088

  2. NICMOS Coronagraphic Observations of 55 Cancri

    G. Schneider et al. 2001 The Astronomical Journal 121 525

  3. Observed atmospheric electricity effect on clouds

    R Giles Harrison and Maarten H P Ambaum 2009 Environ. Res. Lett. 4 014003

  4. Changes in Apparent Size of Giant Stars with Wavelength due to Electron-Hydrogen Collisions

    K. Tatebe and C. H. Townes 2006 ApJ 644 1145

  5. Stabilization of the resistive wall mode in DIII–D by plasma rotation and magnetic feedback

    M Okabayashi et al 2002 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 44 B339

  6. Erratum: "Chemistry of Hydrogen Fluoride in the Interstellar Medium" (2002, ApJ, 577, 795)

    C. Zhu et al. 2009 ApJ 703 1176

  7. Progress in plasma focus research and applications

    V I Krauz 2006 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 48 B221

  8. LoCuSS: A Comparison of Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect and Gravitational-Lensing Measurements of Galaxy Clusters

    Daniel P. Marrone et al 2009 ApJ 701 L114

  9. MOJAVE: Monitoring of Jets in Active Galactic Nuclei with VLBA Experiments. VI. Kinematics Analysis of a Complete Sample of Blazar Jets

    M. L. Lister et al. 2009 The Astronomical Journal 138 1874

  10. Self-affirmation model for football goal distributions

    E. Bittner et al 2007 EPL 78 58002

Users also read

What's this?
This innovative new feature generates a list of articles 'also read' by other users based on them reading the original article. Article abstracts citations and references are all considered and weighted accordingly. We hope that this will help you find relevant papers for your research.

  1. The Lowest Mass White Dwarf
  2. The ELM Survey. I. A Complete Sample of Extremely Low-mass White Dwarfs
  3. The ELM Survey. II. Twelve Binary White Dwarf Merger Systems

Share

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.