Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 White Dwarf Catalog

This table contains a new catalog of spectroscopically confirmed white dwarf stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7) spectroscopic catalog. The authors find 20,407 white dwarf spectra, representing 19,712 stars, and provide atmospheric model fits to 14,120 DA and 1011 DB white dwarf spectra from 12,843 and 923 stars, respectively. These numbers represent more than a factor of two increase in the total number of white dwarf stars from the previous SDSS white dwarf catalogs based on DR4 data. The distribution of subtypes varies from previous catalogs due to the authors' more conservative, manual classifications of each star in our catalog, supplementing their automatic fits. In particular, they find a large number of magnetic white dwarf stars whose small Zeeman splittings mimic increased Stark broadening that would otherwise result in an overestimated log g if fit as a non-magnetic white dwarf. The authors calculate mean DA and DB masses for their clean, non-magnetic sample and find the DB mean mass is statistically larger than that for the DAs. This table lists the 20,407 white dwarf spectra corresponding to 19,712 distinct stars. This table was created by the HEASARC in January 2013 based on the electronic version of Table 2 from the reference paper which was obtained from the ApJS web site. One duplicate entry was removed from the table in June 2019. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .