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Description
We present a catalogue of white dwarf candidates selected from the second data release of Gaia (DR2). We used a sample of spectroscopically confirmed white dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to map the entire space spanned by these objects in the Gaia Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. We then defined a set of cuts in absolute magnitude, colour, and a number of Gaia quality flags to remove the majority of contaminating objects. Finally, we adopt a method analogous to the one presented in our earlier SDSS photometric catalogues to calculate a probability of being a white dwarf (PWD) for all Gaia sources which passed the initial selection. The final catalogue is composed of 486641 stars with calculated PWD from which it is possible to select a sample of~260000 high-confidence white dwarf candidates in the magnitude range 8<G<21. By comparing this catalogue with a sample of SDSS white dwarf candidates we estimate an upper limit in completeness of 85 per cent for white dwarfs with G<=20mag and Teff>7000K, at high Galactic latitudes (|b|>20deg). However, the completeness drops at low Galactic latitudes, and the magnitude limit of the catalogue varies significantly across the sky as a function of Gaia's scanning law. We also provide the list of objects within our sample with available SDSS spectroscopy.
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