We present preliminary limits on the presence of planets around white dwarf stars using the IRAC photometer on the Spitzer space telescope. Planets emit strongly in the mid-infrared which allows their presence to be detected as an excess at these wavelengths. We place limits of 5MJ for 8 stars assuming ages of 1Gyr, and 10MJ for 23 stars.We describe our survey, present our results and comment on approaches to improve our methodology.
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0610856,
title = {Spitzer White Dwarf Planet Limits},
author = {F. Mullally and Ted von Hippel and D. E. Winget},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0610856},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Proceedings of 15th European White Dwarf Workshop