Related papers: Evidence for Gas from a Disintegrating Extrasolar …
White dwarf atmospheres are frequently polluted by material from their own planetary systems. Absorption features from Ca, Mg, Fe and other elements can provide unique insights into the provenance of this exoplanetary material, with their…
The presence of elements heavier than helium in white dwarf atmospheres is often a signpost for the existence of rocky objects that currently or previously orbited these stars. We have measured the abundances of various elements in the…
This paper reports circular spectropolarimetry and X-ray observations of several polluted white dwarfs including WD 1145+017, with the aim to constrain the behavior of disk material and instantaneous accretion rates in these evolved…
Evidence is now compelling that most externally-polluted white dwarfs derive their heavy atoms by accretion from asteroids - the building blocks of rocky planets. Optical and ultraviolet spectroscopy of a small sample of suitable white…
We report the discovery of a white dwarf exhibiting deep, irregularly shaped transits, indicative of circumstellar planetary debris. Using Zwicky Transient Facility DR2 photometry of ZTF$\,$J013906.17+524536.89 and follow-up observations…
WD 1145+017 was observed from 2016 November through 2017 June for the purpose of further characterizing the transit behavior of the dusty debris clouds orbiting this white dwarf. The optical observations were carried out with a small…
With the goal of using externally-polluted white dwarfs to investigate the water fractions of extrasolar planetesimals, we assemble from the literature a sample that we estimate to be more than 60% complete of DB white dwarfs warmer than…
Dozens of white dwarfs with anomalous metal polluted atmospheres (DZ WDs) are known to host dust and gas discs. The line profiles of the Ca II triplet emitted by the gas discs show significant asymmetry. Several minor planets have been…
A significant fraction of white dwarfs show metal lines indicative of pollution with planetary material but the accretion process remains poorly understood. The main aim of this paper is to produce a road-map illustrating several potential…
Approximately $0.2 \pm 0.2$ of white dwarfs (WDs) show signs of pollution by metals, which is likely due to the accretion of tidally disrupted planetary material. Models invoking planet-planet interactions after WD formation generally…
Polluted white dwarfs that have accreted planetary material provide a unique opportunity to probe the geology of exoplanetary systems. However, the nature of the bodies which pollute white dwarfs is not well understood: are they small…
With the launch of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a new era of detecting planetary debris around white dwarfs has begun with the WISE InfraRed Excesses around Degenerates (WIRED) Survey. The WIRED Survey will be sensitive…
We present the discovery of strongly variable emission lines from a gaseous disc around the DA white dwarf SDSS J1617+1620, a star previously found to have an infrared excess indicative of a dusty debris disc formed by the tidal disruption…
We present spectroscopic observations of the dust- and gas-enshrouded, polluted, single white dwarf star SDSSJ104341.53+085558.2 (hereafter SDSSJ1043+0855). Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph far-ultraviolet spectra combined…
The WD 1145+017 system shows irregular transit features that are consistent with the tidal disruption of differentiated asteroids with bulk densities $< 4$ g cm$^{-3}$ and bulk masses $\lesssim 10^{21}$ kg (Veras et al., 2017;…
We present an analysis of X-Shooter spectra of the polluted, hydrogen-rich white dwarf NLTT 25792. The spectra show strong lines of calcium (Ca H&K, near-infrared calcium triplet, and Ca I 4226 and numerous lines of iron along with…
We report nine years of optical spectroscopy of the metal-polluted white dwarf SDSS J104341.53+085558.2, which presents morphological variations of the line profiles of the 8600 \AA\ Ca II triplet emission from the gaseous component of its…
Hydrogen atmosphere white dwarfs with metals, so-called DAZs, require external accretion of material to explain the presence of weak metal line absorption in their photospheres. The source of this material is currently uknown, but could…
There is increasing evidence for the presence and variability of circumstellar dust and gas around white dwarfs that are polluted with exoplanetary material, although the origin of this dust and gas remains debated. This paper presents the…
The destiny of planetary systems through the late evolution of their host stars is very uncertain. We report a metal-rich gas disk around a moderately hot and young white dwarf. A dynamical model of the double-peaked emission lines…