Finding the unusual red giant remnants of cataclysmic variable mergers

The lack of accreting helium-core white dwarfs suggests that they frequently merge with their main-sequence companions. I show that the remnants of these mergers inflate into unusual, "cold-core" red giants with unusual pulsational properties. Merger remnants behave especially differently during core helium burning, where extremely violent helium flashes can significantly enhance the envelope helium fraction. Furthermore, merger remnants which do not undergo this unusual mixing event may explain a recently discovered population of very low-mass red clump stars.