Current Status of the Hot White Dwarf Luminosity Function and non-DA to DA Ratio from SDSS Data

摘要

Recent advances in the determination of the hot white dwarf (WD) luminosity function have reached the point where we have good agreement between the observed and theoretical DA and non-DA LFs for WDs from SDSS DR4. The main progress in calculation of the DA LF was obtained when the WD sample was restricted to only carbon-oxygen core WDs. However, one remaining effect which could influence the LF and the non-DA to DA ratio is the difference in visibility of helium- and hydrogen-atmosphere WDs in a magnitude-limited sample. In this work we explore this effect for the SDSS g filter as a function of effective temperature, as well as make an attempt to evaluate data relevant to the WD sample and LFs from more recent data releases of the SDSS.