Astrometric and photometric verification of faint blue white dwarfs in the Gaia catalogue of nearby stars

Abstract

The Gaia catalogue of nearby stars (GCNS) divided all objects with parallaxes $>$10mas into GCNS-selected and GCNS-rejected 100pc samples. Below the white dwarf (WD) sequence in the complete GCNS color-magnitude diagram (CMD), at $Gabs>14.7+4.7(G-RP)$, there appear 60 GCNS-selected faint blue white dwarfs (FBWDs). However this CMD region is also populated by 411 GCNS-rejected objects, mainly from crowded regions towards the Galactic centre and the Magellanic Clouds. The WD catalog of Gentile Fusillo et al. (2021) lists only 47 GCNS-selected but also 8 GCNS-rejected objects. I confirm 59 of the GCNS-selected but none of the GCNS-rejected objects as FBWDs from visual inspection and a proper motion check using additional optical sky surveys. Hence FBWDs form an additional branch in the CMD. Compared to the full GCNS-selected 100pc sample, FBWDs have relatively high proper motions and tangential velocities. They represent interesting targets for studies of ultracool or infrared-faint, and possibly also ultramassive WDs.