Marcel Agueros

NSF Fellow, Columbia University

Scavenging for Dead Stars: Neutron Stars and White Dwarfs

Neutron stars and white dwarfs are two of the possible endpoints of stellar evolution, small, dense objects left behind after their progenitor stars die. I will discuss briefly our picture of stellar evolution before touching on the properties of neutron stars and white dwarfs and motivating our interest in these exotic objects. Finally, I will describe an ongoing project to identify the companions to low-mass white dwarfs detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. These white dwarfs may have currently undetected neutron star companions, and we are using radio, optical, and X-ray telescopes to search for these unseen objects.