White dwarfs in the 1990's

Abstract

White dwarfs are the last evolutionary phase in the lives of stars that begin with up to about eight times the mass of our sun (8M). Their unique property is that the force of gravity is balance not by ordinary gas pressure but by the pressure of degenerate electrons. The numbers of white dwarfs in our inventories have grown from three in 1926 to many thousands, both single and in binary systems. With the increase has come better understanding, but also a gradual expansion of the population over a wider and wider range of masses, temperature, magnetic field strengths, surface compositions, and other measurable quantities. Some of these confirm earlier predictions; others stretch the associated physics. We explore here the last decade of increased knowledge of white dwarf properties and their relationships with other parts of astronomy.