Creating White Dwarf Photospheres in the Laboratory

Falcon, Ross E.; Rochau, Gregory A.; Bailey, J. E.; Ellis, Jennifer L.; Montgomery, M. H.; Winget, D. E.; Gómez, M. R.; Leeper, R. J.

doi:10.1063/1.3527858

Cited by 7 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…From effective temperature and from evolutionary cooling models [42], the average mass of 449 non-binary DA stars [41] equals 0.65 times the mass of the sun. Details of WD spectra are further investigated by utilizing sufficiently bright light sources for direct measurement of plasma absorption spectra [43,44].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Hydrogen-Beta Emission Spectroscopy for Analysis of Astrophysical White Dwarf Spectra

Parigger

Drake

Helstern

et al. 2018

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This work communicates a review on Balmer series hydrogen beta line measurements and applications for analysis of white dwarf stars. Laser-induced plasma investigations explore electron density and temperature ranges comparable to white dwarf star signatures such as Sirius B, the companion to the brightest star observable from the earth. Spectral line shape characteristics of the hydrogen beta line include width, peak separation, and central dip-shift, thereby providing three indicators for electron density measurements. The hydrogen alpha line shows two primary line-profile parameters for electron density determination, namely, width and shift. Both Boltzmann plot and line-to-continuum ratios yield temperature. The line-shifts recorded with temporally-and spatially-resolved optical emission spectroscopy of hydrogen plasma in laboratory settings can be larger than gravitational redshifts that occur in absorption spectra from radiating white dwarfs. Published astrophysical spectra display significantly diminished Stark or pressure broadening contributions to red-shifted atomic lines. Gravitational redshifts allow one to assess the ratio of mass and radius of these stars, and, subsequently, the mass from cooling models.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Hydrogen-Beta Emission Spectroscopy for Analysis of Astrophysical White Dwarf Spectra

Parigger

Drake

Helstern

et al. 2018

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“…From effective temperature and from evolutionary cooling models [39], the average mass of 449 non-binary DA stars [38] equals 0.65 times the mass of the sun. Details of WD spectra are further investigated by utilizing sufficiently bright light sources for direct measurement of plasma absorption spectra [40,41].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Hydrogen-Beta Emission Spectroscopy for Analysis of Astrophysical White Dwarf Spectra

Parigger¹,

Drake²,

Helstern³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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This work communicates a review on Balmer series hydrogen beta line measurements and applications for analysis of white dwarf stars. Laser-induced plasma investigations explore electron density and temperature ranges comparable to white dwarf star signatures such as Sirius B, the companion to the brightest star observable from the earth. Spectral line shape characteristics of the hydrogen beta line include width, peak separation, and central dip-shift, thereby providing three indicators for electron density measurements. The hydrogen alpha line shows two primary line-profile parameters for electron density determination, namely, width and shift. Both Boltzmann plot and line-to-continuum ratios yield temperature. The line-shifts recorded with temporally- and spatially- resolved optical emission spectroscopy of hydrogen plasma in laboratory settings can be larger than gravitational redshifts that occur in absorption spectra from radiating white dwarfs. Published astrophysical spectra display significantly diminished Stark or pressure broadening contributions to red-shifted atomic lines. Gravitational redshifts allow one to assess the ratio of mass and radius of these stars, and subsequently, the mass from cooling models.

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“…The experimental basis for the line profile theories, however, does not presently provide accurate enough constraints to discern which theoretical model is optimal, if any, and at which conditions. The differences in the new theory and the resulting impact on the WD atmospheric parameters motivate us to perform new experiments to measure hydrogen Balmer line shapes [34]. In this paper we describe the experimental platform for measuring these lines for H plasmas with WD photospheric conditions (T e ∼ 1 eV, n e ∼ 10 17 cm −3 ) and present example data.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

An experimental platform for creating white dwarf photospheres in the laboratory

Falcon

Rochau

Bailey

et al. 2013

High Energy Density Physics

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We present an experimental platform for measuring hydrogen Balmer emission and absorption line profiles for plasmas with white dwarf (WD) photospheric conditions (T e ∼ 1 eV, n e ∼ 10 17 cm −3 ). These profiles will be used to benchmark WD atmosphere models, which, used with the spectroscopic method, are responsible for determining fundamental parameters (e.g., effective temperature, mass) for tens of thousands of WDs. Our experiment, performed at the Z Pulsed Power Facility at Sandia National Laboratories, uses the large amount of x-rays generated from a z-pinch dynamic hohlraum to drive plasma formation in a gas cell. The platform is unique compared to past hydrogen line profile experiments in that the plasma is radiation-driven. This decouples the heating source from the plasma to be studied in the sense that the radiation temperature causing the photoionization is independent of the initial conditions of the gas. For the first time we measure hydrogen Balmer lines in absorption at these conditions in the laboratory for the purpose of benchmarking Stark-broadened line shapes. The platform can be used to study other plasma species and to explore non-LTE, time-dependent collisional-radiative atomic kinetics.

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Creating White Dwarf Photospheres in the Laboratory

Cited by 7 publications

References 9 publications

Laboratory Hydrogen-Beta Emission Spectroscopy for Analysis of Astrophysical White Dwarf Spectra

Laboratory Hydrogen-Beta Emission Spectroscopy for Analysis of Astrophysical White Dwarf Spectra

Laboratory Hydrogen-Beta Emission Spectroscopy for Analysis of Astrophysical White Dwarf Spectra

An experimental platform for creating white dwarf photospheres in the laboratory

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