Seminars are organized jointly by the Trieste Astronomical Observatory (INAF/OATS) and the Astronomy Unit of the Physics Dept. of the Trieste University (UNI/TS). They usually take place on Wednesdays at 11:30, in the seminar room (Sala Ovale) of Villa Bazzoni in via Bazzoni 2, TS.

NEXT SEMINARS: 

Wed, Jun 10, 2020 --- at 11:30 AM, INAF GoogleMeet

SPEAKER: Nicola Gentile Fusillo (ESO, Garching, DE)

TITLE: White dwarfs in the era of Gaia

ABSTRACT: All stars with main sequence masses between 0.8 and 10 Mo share the same final fate: they will one day become white dwarfs. This mass range includes the vast majority of all stars in Galaxy, making white dwarfs by far the most common stellar remnants  and, more importantly, fundamental tools in a broad array of astronomical fields from Galaxy evolution to planetary science. 
However any population study of these stars needs, first of all, large, well-defined samples; a requirement which has been historically very hard to fulfill given the intrinsically low luminosity of white dwarfs. But on April 2018 the second data release of Gaia changed everything. 
Relying on the precise Gaia measurements we constructed the largest and most complete catalogue of white dwarfs to date, increasing eight-fold the number of such objects known (from∼33000 to∼260000) and pushing the volume complete sample from a mere13 pc to 50 pc. Though this progress didn't come without its own challenges, the new Gaia data triggered a rapid progress in our understanding of the white dwarf population. Gaia opened up the possibility to search for rare systems of interest on an unprecedented scale, while allowing accurate characterization of individual objects. Moreover Gaia also provided some “surprises” we simply could not expect, from the identification of white dwarf with previously unknown compositions to direct insight into the evolution of white dwarf’s internal structure. In this talk I will provide a brief overview of "where we stood" before Gaia, I will present some of the most interesting white dwarf discoveries made in the wake of this revolution and I will give a quick summary of future possibilities.