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Hans Publishers, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2(506), p. L25-L28

DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/200912954

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A new extremely low-mass white dwarf in the NLTT catalogue

Journal article published in 2009 by A. Kawka ORCID, S. Vennes
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Preprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
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Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We report on the discovery of the extremely low-mass, hydrogen-rich white dwarf, NLTT 11748. Based on measurements of the effective temperature (8540+/-50 K) and surface gravity (log g = 6.20+/-0.15) obtained by fitting the observed Balmer line profiles with synthetic spectra, we derive a mass of 0.167+/-0.005 M_solar. This object is one of only a handful of white dwarfs with masses below 0.2 M_solar that are believed to be the product of close binary evolution with an episode of Roche lobe overflow onto a degenerate companion (neutron star or white dwarf). Assuming membership in the halo population, as suggested by the kinematics and adopting a cooling age of 4.0 - 6.3 Gyrs for the white dwarf, we infer a progenitor mass of 0.87 - 0.93 M_solar. The likely companion has yet to be identified, but a search for radial velocity variations may help constrain its nature. ; Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A Letters