Astronomers Find a White Dwarf Pulsar - by spacewriter
According to Ingrid Pelisoli of the University of Warwick, it’s not clear what’s creating the amped-up magnetic field at a white dwarf pulsar. “The origin of magnetic fields is a big open question in many fields of astronomy, and this is particularly true for white dwarf stars,” she said. “The magnetic fields in white dwarfs can be more than a million times stronger than the magnetic field of the Sun, and the dynamo model helps to explain why.
Astronomers think that electric currents are caused by convective motion in the core of the white dwarf. These convective currents are caused by heat escaping from the solidifying core. Since a white dwarf is a cooling remnant ofits core will eventually “crystallize” as it cools. Due to their old age, the white dwarfs in both the AR Sco and J1912-4410 systems should be quite cool. J1912-4410’s temperature is low enough that such crystallization could be happening .
It turns out that the M-dwarf stellar companions also play a role in the action, said Pelisoli. “Their companions should be close enough that the gravitational pull of the white dwarf was in the past strong enough to capture mass from the companion, and this causes them to be fast spinning,” she noted.
After confirming that J1912-4410 was a white dwarf pulsar, the team asked if the “engine” was the same as AR Sco’s. If it is similar, that provides a powerful confirmation that the model of white dwarf dynamos works.There’s still a lot more work to be done to understand these strange stellar beasts, with a lot of questions yet to be answered.
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