2012ApJ...745...42T

The Pan-STARRS1 survey has obtained multi-epoch imaging in five bands (Pan-STARRS1 g_P1, r_P1, i_P1, z_P1, and y_P1) on 12 "Medium-Deep fields," each of which spans a 3°.3 circle. For the period between 2009 April and 2011 April these fields were observed 50-200 times. Using a reduced proper motion diagram, we have extracted a list of 47 white dwarf (WD) candidates whose Pan-STARRS1 astrometry indicates a non-zero proper motion at the 6σ level, with a typical 1σ proper motion uncertainty of 10 mas/yr. We also used astrometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (when available) and USNO-B to assess our proper motion fits. None of the WD candidates exhibits evidence of statistically significant parallaxes, with a typical 1σ uncertainty of 8 mas. Twelve of these candidates are known WDs, including the high proper motion (1".7/yr) WD LHS 291. We confirm seven more objects as WDs through optical spectroscopy. Based on the Pan-STARRS1 colors, ten of the stars are likely to be cool WDs with 4170 K <T_eff< 5000 K and cooling ages ~ 8 Gyr. Based on their kinematics, these objects are likely thick disk WDs, but a subset may belong to the halo. Our current sample represents only a small fraction of the Pan-STARRS1 data. With continued coverage from the Medium-Deep Field Survey and the 3π survey, Pan-STARRS1 should find many more high proper motion WDs that are part of the old thick disk and halo.