White Dwarf Light Curves: Constraining Convection and Mode Identification Using Non-sinusoidal Light Curves

Abstract

In this paper we show how the formalism of Wu & Goldreich developed for weakly nonlinear white dwarf pulsations can be extended to the fully nonlinear case. Due to the computational simplification this affords over the simulations of Brickhill (1992) and Ising & Koester (2001), we are able to obtain the first ever fits of observed light curves. These fits allow us to obtain not only mode identifications but also to constrain the average depth of the convection zone and its sensitivity to changes in effective temperature. We are thus able to probe the fundamental physics of convection in these objects.