SDSS wide double white dwarfs spectroscopy

We identify 65 new candidate wide DWDs within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, bringing the number of candidate wide DWDs to 142. We then engage in a spectroscopic follow-up campaign and collect existing spectra for these objects; using these spectra, we derive masses and cooling ages for 54 hydrogen (DA) WDs in DWDs.

We also identify one new DA/DB pair, four candidate DA/DC pairs, four candidate DA/DAH pairs, and one new candidate triple degenerate system. Because wide DWDs are co-eval and evolve independently, the difference in the pre-WD lifetimes should equal the difference in the WD cooling ages. We use this to develop a Bayesian hierarchical framework and construct a likelihood function to determine the probability that any particular IFMR fits a sample of wide DWDs.