A Photometric and Spectroscopic Investigation of the DB White Dwarf Population using SDSS and Gaia Data

Abstract: We present a comprehensive analysis of DB white dwarfs drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, based on model fits to $ugriz$ photometry and medium resolution spectroscopy from the SDSS. We also take advantage of the exquisite trigonometric parallax measurements recently obtained by the Gaia mission. Using the so-called photometric and spectroscopic techniques, we measure the atmospheric and physical parameters of each object in our sample ($T_{\rm eff}$, $\log g$, H/He, Ca/He, $R$, $M$), and compare the values obtained from both techniques in order to assess the precision and accuracy of each method. We then explore in great detail the surface gravity, stellar mass, and hydrogen abundance distributions of DB white dwarfs as a function of effective temperature. We present some clear evidence for a large population of unresolved double degenerate binaries composed of DB+DB and even DB+DA white dwarfs. In the light of our results, we finally discuss the spectral evolution of DB white dwarfs, in particular the evolution of the DB-to-DA ratio as a function of $T_{\rm eff}$, and we revisit the question of the origin of hydrogen in DBA white dwarfs.