The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · 2012 · 215 citations · 86 references
We present improved atmospheric parameters of nearby white dwarfs lying\nwithin 20 pc of the Sun. The aim of the current study is to obtain the best\nstatistical model of the least-biased sample of the white dwarf population. A\nhomogeneous analysis of the local population is performed combining detailed\nspectroscopic and photometric analyses based on improved model atmosphere\ncalculations for various spectral types including DA, DB, DC, DQ, and DZ stars.\nThe spectroscopic technique is applied to all stars in our sample for which\noptical spectra are available. Photometric energy distributions, when\navailable, are also combined to trigonometric parallax measurements to derive\neffective temperatures, stellar radii, as well as atmospheric compositions. A\nrevised catalog of white dwarfs in the solar neighborhood is presented. We\nprovide, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of the mass distribution\nand the chemical distribution of white dwarf stars in a volume-limited sample.\n
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