Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

White Dwarfs In The Solar Neighborhood, John P. Subasavage, Jr.

Physics and Astronomy Dissertations

The study of white dwarfs (WDs) provides insight into understanding WD formation rates, evolution, and space density. Individually, nearby WDs are excellent candidates for astrometric planetary searches because the astrometric signature is greater than for an identical, more distant WD system. As a population, a complete volume-limited sample is necessary to provide unbiased statistics; however, their intrinsic faintness has allowed some to escape detection.

The aim of this dissertation is to identify nearby WDs, accurately characterize them, and target a subset of potentially interesting WDs for follow-up analyses. The most unambiguous method of identifying new WDs is by their proper …

Minimo: A Search For Mini Proper Motion Stars In The Southern Sky, Charlie Thomas Finch

Physics and Astronomy Theses

I report 1684 new proper motion systems in the southern sky (declinations -90 degrees to -47 degrees) with 0.50 arcsec/yr > mu >= 0.18 arcsec/yr. This effort is a continuation of the SuperCOSMOS-RECONS (SCR) proper motion search to lower proper motions than reported in Hambly et al. (2004); Henry et al. (2004); Subasavage et al. (2005a,b). Distance estimates are presented for the new systems, assuming that all stars are on the main sequence. I find that 34 systems are within 25 pc, including three systems --- SCR 0838-5855, SCR 1826-6542, and SCR 0630-7643AB --- anticipated to be within 10 pc. These …