Brown Dwarf Companions to White Dwarfs
Abstract
Brown dwarf companions to white dwarfs are rare, but recent infra-red surveys are slowly reveal- ing examples. We present new observations of the post-common envelope binary WD0137-349, which reveals the effects of irradiation on the ~ 0.05M* secondary, and new observations of GD 1400 which show that it too is a close, post-comon envelope system. We also present the lat- est results in a near-infrared photometric search for unresolved ultracool companions and to white dwarfs with UKIDSS. Twenty five DA white dwarfs were identified as having photometric excesses indicative of a low mass companion, with 8-10 of these having a predicted mass in the range asso- ciated with brown dwarfs. The results of this survey show that the unresolved (< 2") brown dwarf companion fraction to DA white dwarfs is 0.3 \leq fWD+BD \leq 1.3%.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1102.0505,
title = {Brown Dwarf Companions to White Dwarfs},
author = {M. R. Burleigh and P. R. Steele and P. D. Dobbie and J. Farihi and R. Napiwotzki and P. F. L. Maxted and M. A. Barstow and R. F. Jameson and S. L. Casewell and B. T. Gänsicke and T. R. Marsh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1102.0505},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
Part of PlanetsbeyondMS/2010 proceedings http://arxiv.org/html/1011.6606