Discovery of Beryllium in White Dwarfs Polluted by Planetesimal Accretion
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
2021-06-23 v2 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Abstract
The element beryllium is detected for the first time in white dwarf stars. This discovery in the spectra of two helium-atmosphere white dwarfs was made possible only because of the remarkable overabundance of Be relative to all other elements, heavier than He, observed in these stars. The measured Be abundances, relative to chondritic, are by far the largest ever seen in any astronomical object. We anticipate that the Be in these accreted planetary bodies was produced by spallation of one or more of O, C, and N in a region of high fluence of particles of MeV or greater energy.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2102.01834,
title = {Discovery of Beryllium in White Dwarfs Polluted by Planetesimal Accretion},
author = {Beth Klein and Alexandra E. Doyle and B. Zuckerman and P. Dufour and Simon Blouin and Carl Melis and Alycia J. Weinberger and Edward D. Young},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.01834},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
23 pages, 11 figures, 9 tables, v2: revised, accepted for publication in ApJ