White Dwarfs in Globular Clusters S. Moehler1 and G. Bono1,2,3 1 European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching, Germany,
[email protected] 2 Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Rome Tor Vergata, via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, 00133 Rome, Italy,
[email protected] 3 INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, via Frascati 33, 00040 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy We review empirical and theoretical findings concerning white dwarfs in Galactic globular clusters. Since their detection is a critical issue we describe in detail the various efforts to find white dwarfs in globular clusters. We then outline the advantages of using cluster white dwarfs to investigate the forma- tion and evolution of white dwarfs and concentrate on evolutionary channels that appear to be unique to globular clusters. We also discuss the usefulness of globular cluster white dwarfs to provide independent information on the distances and ages of globular clusters, information that is very important far beyond the immediate field of white dwarf research. Finally, we mention pos- sible future avenues concerning globular cluster white dwarfs, like the study of strange quark matter or plasma neutrinos. 1 Introduction During the last few years white dwarfs have been the topic of several thorough review papers focused on rather different aspects. The interested reader is referred to [85] and to [86] for a comprehensive discussion concerning the use of white dwarfs as stellar tracers of Galactic stellar populations and the physics of cool white dwarfs. The advanced evolutionary phases and their impact on the dynamical evolution of open and globular clusters have been reviewed by [116], while [4] provide a comprehensive discussion of the use of arXiv:0806.4456v3 [astro-ph] 30 Jun 2011 white dwarfs to constrain stellar and cosmological parameters together with a detailed analysis of the physical mechanisms driving their evolutionary and pulsation properties.