Non-explosive DWD mergers leaving NS remnants produce optical transients detectable by LSST out to 30-820 Mpc with rates 10²-10⁶ yr⁻¹ depending on log D, though survey cadence restricts reliable detections to log D = 36-40 within 240-760 Mpc at rates 10⁴-10⁵ yr⁻¹.
Gaia Reveals Evidence for Merged White Dwarfs
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abstract
We use Gaia Data Release 2 to identify 13,928 white dwarfs within 100 pc of the Sun. The exquisite astrometry from Gaia reveals for the first time a bifurcation in the observed white dwarf sequence in both Gaia and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) passbands. The latter is easily explained by a helium atmosphere white dwarf fraction of 36%. However, the bifurcation in the Gaia colour-magnitude diagram depends on both the atmospheric composition and the mass distribution. We simulate theoretical colour-magnitude diagrams for single and binary white dwarfs using a population synthesis approach and demonstrate that there is a significant contribution from relatively massive white dwarfs that likely formed through mergers. These include white dwarf remnants of main-sequence (blue stragglers) and post-main sequence mergers. The mass distribution of the SDSS subsample, including the spectroscopically confirmed white dwarfs, also shows this massive bump. This is the first direct detection of such a population in a volume-limited sample.
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Optical transients from non-explosive double white-dwarf mergers: the case of a central neutron star remnant
Non-explosive DWD mergers leaving NS remnants produce optical transients detectable by LSST out to 30-820 Mpc with rates 10²-10⁶ yr⁻¹ depending on log D, though survey cadence restricts reliable detections to log D = 36-40 within 240-760 Mpc at rates 10⁴-10⁵ yr⁻¹.