Open AccessA First Look at White Dwarf-M Dwarf Pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Author(s) -
Sean N. Raymond,
Paula Szkody,
Suzanne L. Hawley,
Scott F. Anderson,
J. Brinkmann,
Kevin R. Covey,
P. McGehee,
Donald P. Schneider,
Andrew A. West,
Donald G. York
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
the astronomical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.61
H-Index - 271
eISSN - 1538-3881
pISSN - 0004-6256
DOI - 10.1086/374762
Subject(s) - physics , white dwarf , astrophysics , sky , stars , telescope , radial velocity , stellar classification , astronomy , brown dwarf
We have identified 109 White Dwarf (WD) - M dwarf pairs in the Sloan DigitalSky Survey (SDSS) with g < 20th magnitude. For each system we determined thetemperature of the WD primary and the spectral type of the M dwarf secondary.Using H-alpha emission as a proxy for the chromospheric activity level of the Mdwarf, we investigated correlations between the activity level and propertiesof the system. Compared with field M dwarfs (Hawley et al. 1996), we see aslightly higher active fraction of early-type stars, with activity levelssimilar to the field. We have conducted followup observations at the ARC 3.5m telescope to obtainradial velocity information and to search for short period binaries, which maybe on the verge of interacting. We report on one system with a 4.1 hour period,and several additional systems with significant velocity variations.Comment: 23 pages with 10 figures. Accepted by AJ, to appear in May 2003 issu
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