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Session 78 - Stars - Young and Old, Large and Small.
Display session, Wednesday, January 15
Metropolitan Ballroom,
Stellar evolution models suggest that neutrino cooling is the dominant source of energy loss for stars near the lower end of the instability strip occupied by the variable pre-white dwarfs. The fraction of the total luminosity contributed by neutrinos increases with increasing mass at every phase of pre-white dwarf evolution. However, at the high-temperature end of the instability strip, neutrinos contribute only a small fraction of the overall luminosity. Recent asteroseismological analysis of light curves of pulsating pre-white dwarfs near the low temperature bound of the instability strip indicate a trend toward higher masses with decreasing temperature for pulsators within the strip. Future measurements of secular changes in the period of the dominant modes in these cool, massive pre-white dwarfs can therefore constrain the neutrino emission taking place in their electron degenerate cores.
