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A. Nitta, S.J. Kleinman (Apache Point Observatory), J. Krzesinski (Apache Point Observatory and Mt. Suhora Observatory), A. S. Mukadam (University of Washington), F. Mullally, R.E. Nather (University of Texas at Austin), S. E. Thompson (Colorado College), D.J. Sullivan (Victoria University of Wellington), D.E. Winget (Univeristy of Texas at Austin)
Most stars in our galaxy eventually become white dwarf stars. Structures of white dwarf stars provide constraints for stellar evolution prior to the white dwarf phase. As the oldest stars in our galaxy, they are also useful as Galactic chronometers. Therefore, understanding the internal structure and evolution of white dwarf stars is very important and asteroseismological studies of white dwarf stars can contribute greatly in both these areas. With the large number of new white dwarf stars discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we have many new white dwarf pulsators and pulsator candidates to explore. We report on the progress on our search for new white dwarf pulsators. We search for candidate pulsators using SDSS spectroscopy, selecting objects with fit temperatures near those of the known pulsators for time-series photometric observations on other telescopes (the ARC 3.5m and 82-inch at McDonald Observatory). So far we have more than doubled the number of known white dwarf pulsators with H atmosphere (DAVs) and increased by 25 pulsators (DBVs). With new pulsators we now have better opportunities to search for class properties of DAVs and DBVs, explore nature of the instability strips, and measure the plasmon neutrino rates and crystallization processes in the stellar interior.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.