Speaker
Description
The Gaia mission has brought an unprecedented revelation in our understanding of the white dwarf population of the Solar neighborhood. The excellent astrometry and photometry provided by DR2 and eDR3 have unveiled unexpected patterns in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, such as the bifurcation or the so-called Q-branch. The analysis and comprehension of such features rely on an accurate determination of the type of atmospheres of white dwarfs (dominated by hydrogen, or helium, or with traces of carbon or other metals). This fact is crucial for determining key stellar parameters, such as temperature, mass, or age of these objects. The use of powerful analysis tools such as VOSA (Virtual Observatory SED Analyzer) or automated classification techniques like Random Forest algorithm has enabled the extraction of maximum information from low-resolution spectra provided by Gaia DR3 for approximately 100,000 white dwarfs within 500 pc, allowing for a spectral classification that sheds light on those intriguing characteristics of the white dwarf population.
