The miniJPAS survey: White dwarf science with 56 optical filters

Journal Article · Fri Sep 23 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Astronomy and Astrophysics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202243584· OSTI ID:1982339

López-Sanjuan, C. ^[1]; Tremblay, P. -E. ^[2]; Ederoclite, A. ^[1]; Ramió, H. Vázquez ^[1]; Cenarro, A. J. ^[1]; Marín-Franch, A. ^[1]; Varela, J. ^[1]; Akras, S. ^[3]; Guerrero, M. A. ^[4]; Jiménez-Esteban, F. M. ^[5]; de Oliveira, R. Lopes ^[6]; Chies-Santos, A. L. ^[7]; Fernández-Ontiveros, J. A. ^[1]; Abramo, R. ^[8]; Alcaniz, J. ^[9]; Benítez, N. ^[4]; Bonoli, S. ^[10]; Carneiro, S. ^[11]; Cristóbal-Hornillos, D. ^[1]; Dupke, R. A. ^[12] ; de Oliveira, C. Mendes ^[8]; Moles, M. ^[1]; Sodré, Jr., L. ^[8]; Taylor, K. ^[13]

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1. Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA), Teruel (Spain)
2. University of Warwick, Coventry (United Kingdom)
3. National Observatory of Athens, Penteli (Greece)
4. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Granada (Spain)
5. European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), Madrid (Spain)
6. Universidade Federal de Sergipe, São Cristóvão (Brazil); Observatório Nacional (ON), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
7. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre (Brazil); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
8. Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil)
9. Observatório Nacional (ON), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
10. Donostia International Physics Centre (DIPC), San Sebastián (Spain); Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao (Spain). IKERBASQUE; Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA), Teruel (Spain)
11. Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador (Brazil)
12. Observatório Nacional (ON), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL (United States)
13. Instruments4, La Canada Flintridge, CA (United States)

We analyze the white dwarf population in miniJPAS, the first square degree observed with 56 medium-band, 145 Å in width optical filters by the Javalambre Physics of the accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS), to provide a data-based forecast for the white dwarf science with low-resolution ($$R$$ ~ 50) photo-spectra. We define the sample of the bluest point-like sources in miniJPAS with $$r$$ < 21.5 mag, a point-like probability larger than 0.5, ($$u$$ - $$r$$)< 0.80 mag, and ($$g$$ - $$i$$)< 0.25 mag. This sample comprises 33 sources with spectroscopic information: 11 white dwarfs and 22 quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). We estimate the effective temperature ($$T$$_eff), the surface gravity, and the composition of the white dwarf population by a Bayesian fitting to the observed photo-spectra. The miniJPAS data are sensitive to the Balmer series and the presence of polluting metals. Our results, combined with those from the Javalambre Photometric Local Universe Survey (J-PLUS) which has a lower spectral resolution but has already observed thousands of white dwarfs, suggest that J-PAS photometry would permit – down to $$r$$ ~ 21.5 mag and at least for sources with 7000 < $$T$$_eff < 22 000 K – both the classification of the observed white dwarfs into H-dominated and He-dominated with 99% confidence and the detection of calcium absorption for equivalent widths larger than 15 Å. The effective temperature is estimated with a 2% uncertainty, which is close to the 1% from spectroscopy. A precise estimation of the surface gravity depends on the available parallax information. In addition, the white dwarf population at $$T$$_eff > 7000 K can be segregated from the bluest extragalactic QSOs, providing a clean sample based on optical photometry alone. The J-PAS low-resolution photo-spectra would produce precise effective temperatures and atmospheric compositions for white dwarfs, complementing the data from Gaia. J-PAS will also detect and characterize new white dwarfs beyond the Gaia magnitude limit, providing faint candidates for spectroscopic follow-up.

• Research Organization: US Department of Energy (USDOE), Washington, DC (United States). Office of Science, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
• Sponsoring Organization: Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness; Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU); USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• OSTI ID: 1982339
• Journal Information: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Journal Name: Astronomy and Astrophysics Vol. 665; ISSN 0004-6361
• Publisher: EDP Sciences
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics
methods: statistical
surveys
techniques: photometric
white dwarfs