White Dwarf Tidal Interactions

The tidal interactions of white dwarf binaries are crucial for understanding the fates of these systems when they merge, connecting them to different classes of astrophysical explosions and other binary systems. New discoveries of compact white dwarf binaries are putting important constraints on these tidal interactions. In the future, we will hopefully have the opportunity to combine gravitational wave measurements with electromagnetic emission. I will describe theoretical work to help interpret these observations, and provide even better measurements of white dwarf tides.