The luminosity function of white dwarfs in the local disk and halo

Abstract

New parallax data and improved magnitude estimates of the white dwarfs (WDs) in the LHS catalog (Luyten, 1979) are used to obtain an updated luminosity function (LF) for these WDs. Sources of error and incompleteness in the LF are discussed. The kinematics of the WD sample based on the derived tangential velocities is examined, and the LF yielded by the sparse population of local halo WDs, as defined from a kinematic criterion, is examined.