Cool White Dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Abstract

A reduced proper motion diagram utilizing Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry and astrometry and USNO-B plate astrometry is used to separate cool white dwarf candidates from metal-weak, high-velocity, main-sequence Population II stars (subdwarfs) in the SDSS Data Release 2 imaging area. Follow-up spectroscopy using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the MMT, and the McDonald 2.7 m telescope is used to demonstrate that the white dwarf and subdwarf loci separate cleanly in the reduced proper motion diagram and that the contamination by subdwarfs is small near the cool white dwarf locus. This enables large, statistically complete samples of white dwarfs, particularly the poorly understood cool white dwarfs, to be created from the SDSS imaging survey, with important implications for white dwarf luminosity function studies. SDSS photometry for our sample of cool white dwarfs is compared to current white dwarf models. Based on observations obtained with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which is a joint project of the University of Texas at Austin, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a joint facility of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arizona.