Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

White Dwarf Cosmochronometry. I. Monte Carlo Simulations Of Proper-Motion And Magnitude-Limited Samples Using Schmidt's 1/Vmax Estimator, Matt A. Wood, Terry D. Oswalt

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

Observationally, white dwarf stars are a remarkably homogeneous class with a minimum observed Teff ∼ 4000 K. Theoretically, the physics that determines their cooling timescales is relatively more straightforward than that which determines main-sequence evolutionary timescales. As a result, the white dwarf luminosity function has for the last decade been used as a probe of the age and star formation rate of the Galactic disk, providing an estimated local disk age of ∼ 10 Gyr with estimated total uncertainties of roughly 20%. A long-standing criticism of the technique is that the reality of the reported downturn in the luminosity function …