White dwarfs are hot and cool!

Nicholas Rui, TAPIR / Caltech

White dwarfs are the compact end products of stellar evolution in the vast majority of stars. They are highly dense Earth-sized, solar-mass objects supported by electron degeneracy pressure. I will first describe the essential physics and phenomenology needed to understand white dwarfs. Subject to time, I will then briefly describe the state of research into white dwarfs, which includes puzzles in magnetism, pulsations, close binarity, detonation, radio emission, and compositional evolution.

Host: Rui

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