White dwarf stars

ALTHAUS, L. G.

Compact objects and their emission

Asociación Argentina de Astronomía (Book Series)

Año: 2009; p. 39 - 54

White dwarfs are the most common end-product of stellarevolution, and as such contain valuable information about the evolutionof individual stars as well as about the star formation history andsubsequent evolution in our Galaxy. In this lecture, I describe the main structural and evolutive properties of white dwarfs. Potential applications ofthese stars to other fields of astrophysics are shortly described.