Publications
of the
MPIfR
Optical & Infrared
Interferometry Group
T. Driebe, T. Blöcker and D.
Schönberner:
The evolution of helium white dwarfs:
Applications to millisecond pulsars
Proceedings of
Pulsar Astronomy - 2000 and Beyond,
IAU Coll. 177, M. Kramer, N. Wex, R. Wielebinski (eds.),
ASP Conference Series 202, 635 (2000)
Abstract.
We present a grid of evolutionary tracks for low-mass white dwarfs with
helium cores in the mass range from 0.179 to 0.414 M_sun. The lower
mass limit
is well suited for comparison with white dwarf companions of
millisecond
pulsars (MSP). The derived cooling ages are of the order of 10^9 yrs
due to
residual nuclear burning. The cooling ages are consistent with age
estimations
of MSP systems based on the pulsars' spin-down. For example, for the
system PSR
1012+5307 we derived a white dwarf cooling age of 6 +/-1 Gyr in good
agreement
with the spin-down age of 7 Gyr. For the companion mass we found M=0.19
+/-
0.02 M_sun. We studied other MSP systems as well selecting only systems
with
well given ages and/or masses, and determined the effective
temperatures and
surface gravities of the companion white dwarfs with the present
evolutionary
models.
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