2010/01/08 by J. Girven, B. T. Gänsicke, B. Külebi +4
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Common envelope #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Physics #Proper motion #RADIUS #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #White dwarf #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.16315.x
7 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2010/01/08 · openalex publication_date 2010/02/01 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We confirm SDSS J130033.48+590407.0 as a common proper motion companion to the well-studied hydrogen-atmosphere (DA) white dwarf PG 1258+593 (GD322). The system lies at a distance of 68 ± 3 pc, where the angular separation of 16.1 ± 0.1 arcsec corresponds to a minimum binary separation of 1091 ± 7 au. SDSS J1300+5904 is a cool (Teff= 6300 ± 300 K) magnetic white dwarf (B≃ 6 mG). PG 1258+593 is a DA white dwarf with Teff= 14790 ± 77 K and log g= 7.87 ± 0.02. Using the white dwarf mass–radius relation implies the masses of SDSS J1300+5904 and PG 1258+593 are 0.54 ± 0.06 and 0.54 ± 0.01 M⊙, respectively, and therefore a cooling age difference of 1.67 ± 0.05 Gyr. Adopting main-sequence lifetimes from stellar models, we derive an upper limit of 2.2 M⊙ for the mass of the progenitor of PG 1258+593. A plausible range of initial masses is 1.4–1.8 M⊙ for PG 1258+593 and 2–3 M⊙ for SDSS J1300+5904. Our analysis shows that white dwarf common proper motion binaries can potentially constrain the white dwarf initial mass–final mass relation and the formation mechanism for magnetic white dwarfs. The magnetic field of SDSS J1300+5904 is consistent with an Ap progenitor star. A common envelope origin of the system cannot be excluded, but requires a triple system as progenitor.