Dr. Ted von Hippel, at the University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. James Liebert, at the University of Arizona, will undertake a program to determine the luminosity functions and space densities of the white dwarfs in the disk, thick disk, and Galactic halo. The team will utilize the tens of thousands of new white dwarfs, made accessible in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Finding the lowest luminosity white dwarfs will allow for a refinement in the age of the disk to be made, and for the first time the ages of the thick disk and halo will be obtained using the method of white dwarf cooling times. Additionally, the shape of the luminosity functions should allow for the star formation history of the population to be reconstructed.
The broader impacts of the program include participation in the teacher professional development workshops held at McDonald Observatory. The workshops are a collaboration with a collaborator (Dr. Harry Shipman) and the education and outreach staff at McDonald Observatory and the University of Arizona. Curriculum content and workshop practices align with the National Standards for Science Education and Texas, Arizona, and Delaware science standards.
