Institute for Advanced Study Informal Astrophysics Seminar

As established by ground based surveys, white dwarfs with hydrogen atmospheres pulsate as they cool across the temperature range, 12,500 K < Teff < 10,800 K. Known as DAVs or ZZ Ceti stars, their oscillations are attributed to overstable g-modes excited by convective driving. The effective temperature at the blue edge of the instability strip is slightly lower than that at which a surface convection zone appears. The temperature at the red edge is a two-decade old puzzle. Recently, the Kepler space telescope discovered a number of cool DAVs exhibiting sporadic outbursts separated by days, each lasting several hours, and releasing ~10^33-10^34 erg. We provide quantitative explanations for both the red edge and the outbursts. The minimal frequency for overstable modes rises abruptly near the red edge. Although high frequency overstable modes exist below the red edge, their photometric amplitudes are generally too small to be detected by ground based observations. Nevertheless, these overstable parent modes can manifest themselves through nonlinear mode couplings to damped daughter modes which generate limit cycles giving rise to photometric outbursts.