White dwarfs as astroparticle physics laboratories

Abstract

White dwarfs are well studied objects. The relative simplic- ity of their physics allows to obtain very detailed models which can be ultimately compared with their observed properties. Among them there is a specific class of stars, the ZZ–Ceti stars that are character- ized by the extreme stability of their periods of pulsation. The rate of change of the period is closely related to the characteristic cooling time of the star, which can be accurately computed. This property not only allows to directly test the evolution of white dwarfs but also to constrain parameters of any new physical theory able to perturb the cooling regime. This technique has been successfuly aplied to the case of axions and can be used to constrain the properties of other theoreti- cal particles. The program we propose here consists in using the ability of the Antartic plateau to perform long time and non–interrupted ob- servations to establish the seismological properties of a well defined set of variable white dwarfs (and other stable pulsators).