Matteo Cantiello edited White Dwarfs.tex  over 10 years ago

Commit id: 65bca1179bb664ccedd7a4089561b0f84a0c0bd6

deletions | additions      

       

\subsection{White Dwarfs}  While burning helium the star enriches its convective core with carbon and oxygen. At the same time the H-burning shell produces He which is accumulated around the growing CO core. At the end of core He burning the energy generation occurs in two shells (burning H and He) moving outwards in mass coordinate while the star moves upwards along the asymptotic giant branch (AGB). The He-shell becomes secularly unstable, giving rise to thermal pulses (TP-AGB). These pulses grow in intensity and are thought to enhance mass loss, ultimately leading to a complete removal of the H-envelope, a planetary nebula and the transition to the white dwarf cooling sequence. Details are not well understood and the transition time from the AGB to the WD cooling sequence depends on the treatment of mass-loss beyond the AGB. Note however that the timescale for angular momentum transport between core and envelope are likely much longer than the range of timescales discussed for the duration of this phase, so that the results on the angular momentum content of WD models should not depend strongly on the particular treatment of this phase. phase \citep{Kawaler:2005}. This is supported by the fact that the observed WD rotation rates can be recovered from the observed core rotation of clump stars assuming no angular momentum transport (see dotted line in Fig.~\ref{period})  % MC: Check Fix figure and check  this statement statement,  In our calculations during the TP-AGB phase we adopt the mass loss prescription of \citet{Bloecker:1995} multiplied by an efficiency factor $\eta = 10$. Results for the final rotation rate of WD as predicted by our models including magnetic torques are shown in table~\ref{table}. We note that, while they fail to explain the rotation rates in previous evolutionary phases (RGB and clump), these models can marginally  reproduce values deduced from the asteroseismic observations of ZZ Ceti stars. This is consistent with the findings of \citet{larends_Yoon_Heger_Herwig_2008}, even if their final rotation rates seem to be higher than the one found by the MESA calculations (which are in better agreement with the observations).