Model atmosphere analysis of white dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey footprint of Gaia: the definitive work

白色矮星代表了银河系中超过97%的恒星的终点，包括我们的太阳。这些地球大小的物体具有简并核心（量子力学描述的物质的独特状态），其中不再发生核聚变。因此，白色矮星只是在数十亿年的时间里慢慢冷却，它们是我们银河系中最古老的成员。它们可以提供对银河系人口和星星形成历史的深入了解。因此，白色矮星对于天体物理学研究的所有主要领域都是至关重要的，因此确定它们的性质（质量，冷却年龄，大气和内部成分）可以提供有关行星系统，恒星，银河系和其他星系的各种有用信息。此外，作为密度极高的天体，白色矮星提供了精致的物理环境，可以测试和改进高密度物理模型。这项研究建议的主要科学目标是利用现有的所有光谱和光度数据，但最重要的是利用盖亚空间使命（天体物理学全球天体测量干涉仪）的天体测量数据，全面了解白色矮星的性质和演变，该任务最近公布了对10亿多颗恒星的距离测量结果，其中包括大约260，000颗白色矮星。多年来，我们蒙特利尔大学的研究小组一直在开发最先进的模型大气，以使用所谓的光度和光谱技术测量白色矮星的基本恒星参数（温度、质量、半径、化学成分、年龄）。光谱学方法依赖于将具有足够强的吸收线的恒星的光谱（斯隆数字巡天目前可获得超过33，000条）与模型大气的预测相拟合，而光度学方法则依赖于将观测到的能量分布与类似的模型相拟合，这种技术需要了解恒星距离。直到最近，直接距离测量只能用于300个左右的白色矮星，严重限制了测光方法对大样本的适用性。盖亚使命现在已经测量了几乎每一个光谱确认的白色矮星的距离，以及许多白色矮星的候选者，这是白色矮星社区的一场真正的革命。这些大的数据集将使我们不仅能够提高我们的白色矮星参数的测定，但最重要的是，研究我们的模型大气计算的有效性，通过比较第一次从两种方法获得的参数。这些结果将反过来为研究初始到最终质量关系、恒星形成速率、初始质量函数和银河系的化学演化提供关键信息，所有这些科学研究领域都将对天体物理学的其他领域产生深刻影响。

White dwarf stars represent the endpoint of more than 97% of the stars in our galaxy, including our own Sun. These Earth-sized objects have degenerate cores (a unique state of matter described by quantum mechanics) in which nuclear fusion no longer occurs. As such, white dwarfs simply cool off slowly over billions of years and they are by far the oldest members of our Galaxy. They can provide insights into Galactic populations and the history of star formation. Hence white dwarfs are fundamentally important for all major areas of astrophysical research, and the determination of their properties (mass, cooling age, atmospheric and internal composition) thus provides a variety of useful information on planetary systems, the stars, the Galaxy and other galaxies as well. Also, being extremely dense objects, white dwarfs provide exquisite physical environments where high-density physics models can be tested and improved. The main scientific objective of this research proposal is to provide a full understanding of the nature and evolution of white dwarf stars using all the currently available spectroscopic and photometric data, but most of all, astrometric data from Gaia space mission (Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics), which recently released distance measurements of over one billion stars, including around 260,000 white dwarfs. Over the years, our group at University of Montreal has been developing state-of-the-art model atmospheres to measure the fundamental stellar parameters of white dwarfs (temperature, mass, radius, chemical composition, age) using the so-called photometric and spectroscopic techniques. The spectroscopic technique relies on fitting optical spectra of stars with strong enough absorption lines (over 33,000 of which are currently available from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey) with the predictions of model atmospheres, while the photometric method relies on fitting the observed energy distribution with similar models, a technique that requires the knowledge of stellar distances. Until recently, direct distance measurements were only available for 300 white dwarfs or so, severely restricting the applicability of the photometric method to large samples. The Gaia mission has now measured the distance to almost every single spectroscopically confirmed white dwarf, and many white dwarf candidates as well, a true revolution in the white dwarf community. These large data sets will allow us not only to improve our determinations of white dwarf parameters, but most importantly, to study the validity of our model atmosphere calculations by comparing for the first time the parameters obtained from both methods. These results will in turn provide crucial information for studying the initial-to-final mass relation, the stellar formation rate, the initial mass function, and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy, all areas of scientific research that will have a deep impact on other areas of astrophysics.