The 11th European Workshop on White Dwarfs11Conference was held in Tromsø, Norway, in 1998 July. Proceedings will be edited by Jan‐Erik Solheim and published in the ASP Conference Series.

Abstract

The 11th European Workshop on White Dwarfs was held in Tromso, Norway, on 1998 June 29–July 3. The meeting was part of a continuing biannual series that began in Kiel, Germany, in 1974. At the present meeting, there were 85 participants from 17 countries. The program consisted of 30 minute review talks given primarily by astronomers in the early years of their careers, 15 minute contributed talks, and 5 minute oral presentations by authors of poster papers. The meeting venue, amid the surroundings of mountainous Arctic landscapes and fjords, provided a stimulating environment (and 24 hours of daylight) for discussing the latest research on degenerate stars. Compared with the previous workshop, held 2 years ago in Blanes, Spain, the Tromso meeting contained (1) more results from the Whole Earth Telescope (WET), (2) several important new strides in understanding the overall chemical evolution and formation channels of white dwarfs, (3) more new developments in white dwarf magnetism, and (4) a greater emphasis on white dwarfs in binary systems, including white dwarfs in accreting binaries and the continuing search for double degenerates as Type Ia supernova progenitors. The highlights that follow are my personal view of the most significant papers. H. Shipman and J. Provencal reported unprecedented precision in the determination of white dwarf masses and radii from Hipparcos parallaxes. To cite just one example, 40 Eri B has and and thus lies preR 0.0136 R M 0.458 M , , cisely on the zero-temperature mass-radius relation for a carbon core. Surprisingly, however, three other well-known degenerates lie below the mass-radius relations for C, O, and even Mg! Indeed, Procyon B, with a mass of 0.59 M,, lies on the mass-radius relation for an Fe core. The possibility that some white dwarfs of such low masses may have Fe-rich cores sparked considerable discussion. Already, one theorist present (J. Isern) suggested an explanation for how a white dwarf could form with an iron core. It is remarkable that, for selected degenerates, a level of precision in the measurements of mass and radius has been attained that