Unveiling the Dark Side

Discovery and characterisation of black holes (BHs), neutron stars (NSs), and white dwarfs (WDs) with detached luminous companions (LCs) in wide orbits are exciting because they are important test beds for dark remnant (DR) formation physics as well as binary stellar evolution models. Recently, 187 candidates have been identified from Gaia's non-single star catalog as wide orbit (P_orb > 45 days), detached binaries hosting DRs. We identify UV counterparts for 49 of these sources in the archival GALEX data. Modeling the observed spectral energy distribution (SED) spanning FUV-NUV to IR for these sources and stellar evolution models, we constrain the LC properties including mass, bolometric luminosity, and effective temperature for these 49 sources. Using the LC masses, and the astrometric mass function constrained by Gaia, we constrain the DR masses for these sources. We find that 9 have masses clearly in the NS or BH mass range. Fifteen sources exhibit significant NUV excess and 4 show excess both in FUV and NUV. The simplest explanation for these excess UV flux is that the DRs in these sources are white dwarfs (WDs). Using SED modeling we constrain the effective temperature and bolometric luminosity for these 15 sources. Our estimated DR masses for all of these 15 sources are lower than the Chandrasekhar mass limit for WDs. Interestingly, five of these sources had been wrongly identified as neutron stars in literature.