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| Paper: |
White Dwarfs in the SDSS Photometric Footprint |
| Volume: |
469, 18th European White Dwarf Workshop (EUROWD12) |
| Page: |
217 |
| Authors: |
Gentile Fusillo, N. P.; Girven, J.; Gänsicke, B. |
| Abstract: |
Attempts to create a homogeneous catalogue of white dwarfs have always been faced with the challenge posed by the intrinsic faintness of these objects.
In recent years, thanks to large area surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the size of the known white dwarf population has increased dramatically,
but, in order to carry out a statical study on the population of white dwarfs, it is necessary to have a reliable and well-defined selection method.
We present a method which uses cuts in colour-colour space to select from DR7 16785 bright (g ≤ 19) photometric DA white dwarf candidates (Girven et al. 2011).
The selection is 62% efficient in returning DA white dwarfs and produces a DA sample which is 95% complete for Teff > 8000 K.
This sample contains 4636 spectroscopically confirmed DA white dwarfs; i.e. a ∼70% increase compared to Eisenstein et al.'s sample.
As a first application of the SDSS DR7 DA candidates sample we cross correlated it with Data Release 8 of UKIDSS Large Area Survey with the aim of identifying white dwarfs which exhibit an infrared
excess consistent with the presence of low mass stellar companions or dusty debris discs.
Our current work aims to extend the photometric selection to all types of white dwarfs, using reduced proper motion
as a further constrain. We expect to find a total of ∼20 000 photometric white dwarf candidates with g ≤ 19 in the footprint of SDSS DR8. |
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