A New Generation of Cool White Dwarf Atmosphere Models. IV. Revisiting the Spectral Evolution of Cool White Dwarfs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract As a result of competing physical mechanisms, the atmospheric composition of white dwarfs changes throughout their evolution, a process known as spectral evolution. Because of the ambiguity of their atmospheric compositions and the difficulties inherent to the modeling of their dense atmospheres, no consensus exists regarding the spectral evolution of cool white dwarfs ( T eff < 6000 K). In the previous papers of this series, we presented and observationally validated a new generation of cool white dwarf atmosphere models that include all the necessary constitutive physics to accurately model those objects. Using these new models and a homogeneous sample of 501 cool white dwarfs, we revisit the spectral evolution of cool white dwarfs. Our sample includes all spectroscopically identified white dwarfs cooler than 8300 K for which a parallax is available in Gaia DR2 and photometric observations are available in Pan-STARRS1 and 2MASS. Except for a few cool carbon-polluted objects, our models allow an excellent fit to the spectroscopic and photometric observations of all objects included in our sample. We identify a decrease of the ratio of hydrogen- to helium-rich objects between 7500 and 6250 K, which we interpret as the signature of convective mixing. After this decrease, hydrogen-rich objects become more abundant up to 5000 K. This puzzling increase, reminiscent of the non-DA gap, has yet to be explained. At lower temperatures, below 5000 K, hydrogen-rich white dwarfs become rarer, which rules out the scenario in which the accretion of hydrogen from the interstellar medium dominates the spectral evolution of cool white dwarfs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".