Abstract
SINCE the discovery of Sirius as a soft X-ray source1, two models have been proposed to account for the emission—thermal emission from deep layers of an almost pure hydrogen atmosphere2, and an acoustically heated corona around the white dwarf (WD) Sirius B (ref. 3). Both models seem unsatisfactory in some respects: the thermal emission model does not agree with the recently revised upper limits found from extreme UV observations4, and the Teff of Sirius B is much too large for H-convection. In this note we re-examine the constraints on the corona model in the light of historical records suggesting a possible pseudo-red giant phase a few thousand years ago.
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D'ANTONA, F., MAZZITELLI, I. Constraints on the corona model for Sirius B. Nature 275, 726–727 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/275726a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/275726a0
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