A catalogue of white dwarfs in Gaia EDR3

We present a catalogue of white dwarf candidates selected from Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3). We applied several selection criteria in absolute magnitude, colour, and Gaia quality flags to remove objects with unreliable measurements while preserving most stars compatible with the white dwarf locus in the Hertzspning-Russell diagram. We then used a sample of over 30 000 spectroscopically confirmed white dwarfs and contaminants from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to map the distribution of these objects in the Gaia absolute magnitude-colour space. Finally, we adopt the same method presented in our previous work on Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) to calculate a probability of being a white dwarf (P-WD ) for similar or equal to 1.3 million sources that passed our quality selection. The P-WD values can be used to select a sample of similar or equal to 359 000 high-confidence white dwarf candidates. We calculated stellar parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity, and mass) for all these stars by fitting Gaia astrometry and photometry with synthetic pure-H, pure-He, and mixed H-He atmospheric models. We estimate an upper limit of 93 per cent for the overall completeness of our catalogue for white dwarfs with G <= 20 mag and effective temperature (T-eff) > 7000 K, at high Galactic latitudes (vertical bar b vertical bar > 20 degrees). Alongside the main catalogue we include a reduced proper motion extension containing similar or equal to 10 200 white dwarf candidates with unreliable parallax measurements that could, however, be identified on the basis of their proper motion. We also performed a cross-match of our catalogues with SDSS Data Release 16 (DR16) spectroscopy and provide spectral classification based on visual inspection for all resulting matches.

Automated summary

In this study, a catalogue of white dwarf candidates was presented based on Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) and compared with samples from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The distribution of these candidates was mapped in the Gaia absolute magnitude-colour space, and a probability of being a white dwarf was calculated for over 1.3 million sources. High-confidence white dwarf candidates were selected based on these calculations and stellar parameters were estimated using synthetic atmospheric models. The catalogue was found to have an overall completeness limit of 93% for white dwarfs with G <= 20 mag and effective temperature (T-eff) > 7000 K at high Galactic latitudes.