Stark broadening and white dwarfs

Abstract

White dwarf and pre-white dwarfs are the best types of stars for the application of Stark broadening research results in astrophysics, since in the atmospheres of these stars physical conditions are very favorable for this line broadening mechanism - in hot hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs and pre-white dwarfs Teff = 75 000-180 000 K and log5 = 5.5-8 [cgs]. Even for much cooler DA and DB white dwarfs with the typical effective temperatures 10000-20 000 K, Stark broadening is usually the dominant broadening mechanism. In this review, Stark broadening in white dwarf spectra is considered, and the attention is drawn to the STARK-B database (http://stark-b.obspm.fr/), containing the parameters needed for analysis and synthesis of white dwarf spectra, as well as for the collective efforts to develop the Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Center.