Excess Infrared Radiation from a Massive DAZ White Dwarf: GD362 - a Debris Disk?
Abstract
We report the discovery of excess K-band radiation from a massive DAZ white dwarf star, GD362. Combining infrared photometric and spectroscopic observations, we show that the excess radiation cannot be explained by a stellar or substellar companion, and is likely to be caused by a debris disk. This would be only the second such system known, discovered 18 years after G29-38, the only single white dwarf currently known to be orbited by circumstellar dust. Both of these systems favor a model with accretion from a surrounding debris disk to explain the metal abundances observed in DAZ white dwarfs. Nevertheless, observations of more DAZs in the mid-infrared are required to test if this model can explain all DAZs.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0509188,
title = {Excess Infrared Radiation from a Massive DAZ White Dwarf: GD362 - a Debris Disk?},
author = {Mukremin Kilic and Ted von Hippel and S. K. Leggett and D. E. Winget},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0509188},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters