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Paper: The White Dwarf Mass Distribution
Volume: 372, 15th European Workshop on White Dwarfs
Page: 35
Authors: Kepler, S.O.; Kleinman, S.J.; Nitta, A.; Koester, D.; Castanheira, B.G.; Giovannini, O.; Althaus, L.
Abstract: Studying the 7755 single non-magnetic DA white dwarfs discov- ered by the Sloan Digital Survey we determined their Teff and log g. We find a handful of stars whose Sloan optical spectra, when compared to Koester's model atmosphere grid up to log g = 10 and Althaus' evolutionary models, indicate masses above 1.3M. We report here on the mass distribution. The mean mass for the stars brighter than g = 19 and hotter than Teff = 12 000 K, (M)DA ≃ 0.593 - 0.016 M. We also determined the masses for the 616 single DBs in the DR4 sample. For the 166 DBs brighter than g = 19 and hotter than Teff = 16 000 K, we find (M)DB = 0.683 - 0.008M. It appears the mean mass for DB white dwarf stars is larger than that for DAs.
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