Being the first of its kind, the white dwarf WD 1145+017 exhibits a complex system of disintegrating debris which offers a unique opportunity to study its disruption process in real time. Even with plenty of transit observations there are no clear constraints on the masses or eccentricities of such debris. Using N-body simulations we show that masses greater than approximately 1020 kg (a tenth of the mass of Ceres) or orbits that are not nearly circular (eccentricity>10−3) dramatically increase the chances of the system becoming unstable within two years, which would contrast with the observational data over this timespan. We also provide a direct comparison between transit phase shifts detected in the observations and by our numerical simulations.
@article{arxiv.1609.02563,
title = {Mass and eccentricity constraints on the planetary debris orbiting the white dwarf WD 1145+017},
author = {Pol Gurri and Dimitri Veras and Boris T. Gänsicke},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.02563},
year = {2016}
}