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Sinking of Ne-22 in Liquid White Dwarf Interiors

Christopher J. Deloye, Lars Bildsten

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/0209248

Abstract

We assess the impact of the trace element Ne-22 on the cooling and seismology of a liquid C/O white dwarf (WD). Due to this element's neutron excess, it sinks towards the interior as the liquid WD cools. The gravitational energy released slows the WD's cooling by 0.5-1.6 Gyr. In addition the Ne-22 abundance gradient changes the periods of the high radial order g-modes at the 1% level.

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