juliensimon/gaia-dr3-white-dwarfs

---
license: cc-by-4.0
pretty_name: "Gaia DR3 White Dwarfs"
language:
- en
description: "Gaia DR3 white dwarf candidates from the Gentile Fusillo+ 2021 catalog — 1,280,266 high-confidence WD candidates with atmospheric parameters, masses, and photometry."
task_categories:
- tabular-classification
- tabular-regression
tags:
- space
- gaia
- white-dwarfs
- stars
- esa
- astronomy
- open-data
- tabular-data
size_categories:
- 100K<n<1M
configs:
- config_name: default
data_files:
- split: train
path: data/gaia_dr3_white_dwarfs.parquet
default: true
---

# Gaia DR3 White Dwarfs

*Part of the [Astronomy Datasets](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/astronomy-datasets-69c24caf2f17e36128946743) collection on Hugging Face.*

The definitive Gaia DR3 white dwarf catalog from Gentile Fusillo et al. (2021), containing
**1,280,266** high-confidence white dwarf candidates identified from ESA Gaia astrometry
and photometry. Each source includes a WD probability score, atmospheric parameters
(effective temperature, surface gravity), mass estimates, and multi-band photometry.

## Dataset description

White dwarfs are the dense stellar remnants left after low- and intermediate-mass stars
exhaust their nuclear fuel. They represent the final evolutionary stage of over 95% of all
stars. This catalog was constructed by selecting Gaia DR3 sources in the white dwarf region
of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and assigning each a probability of being a genuine WD
(`prob_wd`) using a random forest classifier trained on spectroscopically confirmed samples.

Atmospheric parameters (Teff, log g) and masses were derived by fitting Gaia photometry
and parallaxes to hydrogen-atmosphere (DA) and helium-atmosphere (DB) white dwarf models.

## Key columns

| Column | Type | Description |
|--------|------|-------------|
| `wdj_name` | string | WD J designation |
| `source_id` | string | Gaia DR3 unique source identifier |
| `ra_deg` | float64 | Right ascension ICRS (degrees) |
| `dec_deg` | float64 | Declination ICRS (degrees) |
| `parallax_mas` | float64 | Parallax (milliarcseconds) |
| `prob_wd` | float64 | Probability of being a white dwarf (0-1) |
| `g_mag` | float64 | Mean G-band magnitude |
| `bp_mag` | float64 | Mean BP-band magnitude |
| `rp_mag` | float64 | Mean RP-band magnitude |
| `bp_rp` | float64 | BP-RP color index |
| `g_abs_mag` | float64 | Absolute G-band magnitude |
| `teff_k` | float64 | Effective temperature (K) |
| `log_g` | float64 | Surface gravity (log cm/s^2) |
| `mass_msun` | float64 | Mass (solar masses) |
| `distance_pc` | float64 | Distance (parsecs) |
| `ruwe` | float64 | Renormalized unit weight error |

Full schema includes 157 columns with proper motions, uncertainties, extinction, and radial velocities.

## Quick stats

- **1,280,266** white dwarf candidates
- **359,073** with Pwd > 0.75
- Median G magnitude: 20.18
- Median Teff: nan K
- Median mass: nan Msun
- Median Pwd: 0.191

## Usage

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/gaia-dr3-white-dwarfs", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# High-confidence white dwarfs
high_conf = df[df["prob_wd"] > 0.75]
print(f"High-confidence WDs: {len(high_conf):,}")

# HR diagram
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
valid = df.dropna(subset=["bp_rp", "g_abs_mag"])
plt.hexbin(valid["bp_rp"], valid["g_abs_mag"], gridsize=200, mincnt=1, cmap="hot")
plt.colorbar(label="Count")
plt.xlabel("BP - RP (mag)")
plt.ylabel("Absolute G (mag)")
plt.gca().invert_yaxis()
plt.title("Gaia DR3 White Dwarf HR Diagram")
plt.show()

# Mass distribution
df["mass_msun"].dropna().hist(bins=100)
plt.xlabel("Mass (solar masses)")
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.title("White Dwarf Mass Distribution")
plt.show()
```

## Data source

Gentile Fusillo, N.P. et al. (2021), "A catalogue of white dwarfs in Gaia EDR3",
*MNRAS*, 508, 3877. Accessed via [VizieR CDS](https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/)
(catalog J/MNRAS/508/3877).

## Related datasets

- [Gaia DR3 Eclipsing Binaries](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/gaia-dr3-eclipsing-binaries) -- Gaia eclipsing binary candidates
- [Gaia DR3 Variable Star Summary](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/gaia-dr3-variable-summary) -- all Gaia variable star classifications

## Pipeline

Source code: [juliensimon/space-datasets](https://github.com/juliensimon/space-datasets)

## Citation

```bibtex
@dataset{gaia_dr3_white_dwarfs,
author = {Simon, Julien},
title = {Gaia DR3 White Dwarfs},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Hugging Face},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/gaia-dr3-white-dwarfs},
note = {Based on Gentile Fusillo+ 2021 (MNRAS 508, 3877) via VizieR CDS}
}
```

## License

[CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)