An Exploration of Spotted White Dwarfs from K2

The Kepler K2 mission has discovered a significant population of white dwarf stars that exhibit photometric variability due to surface inhomogeneities likely related to magnetism. These “spotted” white dwarfs present not only in temperature regimes where we expect convection to dominate white dwarf photospheres, but also where radiation should dominate. We present an exploration of spotted white dwarfs as a function of various physical characteristics, including temperature, magnetic field strength, and rotational period, in order to better understand the origins of these photometric variations.