Analysis of cool DO-type white dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 10

¹ Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Kepler Center for Astro and Particle Physics, Eberhard Karls University, Sand 1, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
e-mail: reindl@astro.uni-tuebingen.de
² Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-900 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
³ Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

Received: 26 August 2014
Accepted: 17 October 2014

Abstract

We report on the identification of 22 new cool DO-type white dwarfs (WDs) detected in data release 10 (DR10) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Among them, we found one more member of the so-called hot-wind DO WDs, which show ultrahigh excitation absorption lines. Our non-LTE model atmosphere analyses of these objects and two not previously analyzed hot-wind DO WDs, revealed effective temperatures and gravities in the ranges T_eff = 45−80 kK and log g = 7.50−8.75. In eight of the spectra we found traces of C (0.001−0.01, by mass). Two of these are the coolest DO WDs ever discovered that still show a considerable amount of C in their atmospheres. This is in strong contradiction with diffusion calculations, and probably, similar to what is proposed for DB WDs, a weak mass-loss is present in DO WDs. One object is the most massive DO WD discovered so far with a mass of 1.07 M_⊙ if it is an ONe-WD or 1.09 M_⊙ if it is a CO-WD. We furthermore present the mass distribution of all known hot non-DA (pre-) WDs and derive the hot DA to non-DA ratio for the SDSS DR7 spectroscopic sample. The mass distribution of DO WDs beyond the wind limit strongly deviates from the mass distribution of the objects before the wind limit. We address this phenomenon by applying different evolutionary input channels. We argue that the DO WD channel may be fed by about 13% by post-extreme-horizontal branch stars and that PG 1159 stars and O(He) stars may contribute in a similar extent to the non-DA WD channel.