Previous
abstract 
Next
abstract
Session 73 - White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars and Pulsars.
Display session, Thursday, June 13
Great Hall,
Identifications are presented for nearly 300 Luyten common proper motion (CPM) stellar systems containing probable white dwarf (WD) components. With the CPM systems previously published, these Luyten stars provide a uniform sample of approximately 500 such pairs. Because they are widely separated, the evolutionary histories of these systems are not complicated by mass exchange, and their orbital velocities are negligible. The CPM binaries therefore provide a unique opportunity to study degenerate star evolution and measure the gravitational redshifts and masses of white dwarfs. Classification spectroscopy has been obtained for 85 percent of the sample, and high-dispersion spectroscopy to determine gravitational redshifts has begun. Preliminary results will be summarized. This research is supported by NSF grant AST-9016284 to TDO.
