Related papers: Ejection of material --"Jurads" -- from post main …
Polluted white dwarfs serve as astrophysical mass spectrometers - their photospheric abundances are used to infer the composition of planetary objects that accrete onto them. We show that due to asymmetries in the accretion process, the…
The metal budgets in some white dwarf (WD) atmospheres reveal that volatile-rich circumstellar bodies must both exist in extrasolar systems and survive the giant branch phases of stellar evolution. The resulting behaviour of these active…
White dwarfs that have accreted rocky planetary bodies provide unique insights regarding the bulk composition of exoplanetary material. The analysis presented here uses observed white dwarf atmospheric abundances to constrain both where in…
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…
1I/'Oumuamua is the first interstellar interloper to have been detected. Because planetesimal formation and ejection of predominantly icy objects are common by-products of the star and planet formation processes, in this study we address…
As the descendants of stars with masses less than 8 M$_{\odot}$ on the main sequence, white dwarfs provide a unique way to constrain planetary occurrence around intermediate-mass stars (spectral types BAF) that are otherwise difficult to…
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…
Circumstellar disks of planetary debris are now known or suspected to closely orbit hundreds of white dwarf stars. To date, both data and theory support disks that are entirely contained within the preceding giant stellar radii, and hence…
Metal pollution in white dwarf atmospheres is likely to be a signature of remnant planetary systems. Most explanations for this pollution predict a sharp decrease in the number of polluted systems with white dwarf cooling age. Observations…
The photospheres of some white dwarfs are "polluted" by accretion of material from their surrounding planetary debris. White dwarfs with dust disks are often heavily polluted and high-resolution spectroscopic observations of these systems…
It is difficult to study the interiors of terrestrial planets in the Solar System and the problem is magnified for distant exoplanets. However, sometimes nature is helpful. Some planetary bodies are torn to fragments and consumed by the…
1I/`Oumuamua is the first known interstellar small body, probably being only about 100~m in size. Against expectations based on comets, `Oumuamua does not show any activity and has a very elongated figure, and also exhibits undamped…
During the formation of our solar system, a large number of planetesimals were ejected into interstellar space by gravitational encounters with the planets. Debris disks observations and numerical simulations indicate that many other…
We suggest that Jovian planets will survive the late stages of stellar evolution, and that white dwarfs will retain planetary systems in wide orbits (>5AU). Utilising evolutionary models for Jovian planets, we show that infra-red imaging…
The discovery of 1I/`Oumuamua confirmed that planetesimals must exist in great numbers in interstellar space. Originally generated during planet formation, they are scattered from their original systems and subsequently drift through…
In the Solar System short-lived radioisotopes, such as 26Al, played a crucial role during the formation planetary bodies by providing a significant additional source of heat. Notably, this led to early and large-scale melting and iron core…
A widely-held assumption is that each single white dwarf containing observable rocky debris requires the presence of at least one terrestrial or giant planet to have gravitationally perturbed the progenitor of the debris into the star.…
Existing determinations show that n(C)/n(Fe) is more than a factor of 10 below solar in the atmospheres of three white dwarfs that appear to be externally-polluted. These results are not easily explained if the stars have accreted…
Studies suggest that the pollution of white dwarf (WD) atmospheres arises from the accretion of minor planets, but the exact properties of polluting material, and in particular the evidence for water in some cases are not yet understood.…
Metal pollution in white dwarf photospheres originates from the accretion of some combination of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, boulders, pebbles and dust. When large bodies reside in dynamically stagnant locations -- unable themselves…