Date Published:

January 1, 2013

Abstract:

We present a new catalog of spectroscopically confirmed white dwarfstars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7spectroscopic catalog. We find 20,407 white dwarf spectra, representing19,712 stars, and provide atmospheric model fits to 14,120 DA and 1011DB white dwarf spectra from 12,843 and 923 stars, respectively. Thesenumbers represent more than a factor of two increase in the total numberof white dwarf stars from the previous SDSS white dwarf catalogs basedon DR4 data. Our distribution of subtypes varies from previous catalogsdue to our more conservative, manual classifications of each star in ourcatalog, supplementing our automatic fits. In particular, we find alarge number of magnetic white dwarf stars whose small Zeeman splittingsmimic increased Stark broadening that would otherwise result in anoverestimated log g if fit as a non-magnetic white dwarf. We calculatemean DA and DB masses for our clean, non-magnetic sample and find the DBmean mass is statistically larger than that for the DAs.

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