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Related papers: White Dwarf Pollution by Asteroids from Secular Re…

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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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2016-08-03 Adrian S. Hamers , Simon F. Portegies Zwart

The atmospheres of between one quarter and one half of observed single white dwarfs in the Milky Way contain heavy element pollution from planetary debris. The pollution observed in white dwarfs in binary star systems is, however, less…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-11-29 Dimitri Veras , Siyi Xu , Alberto Rebassa-Mansergas

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-11-12 Marc G. Brouwers , Amy Bonsor , Uri Malamud

25%-50% of all white dwarfs (WDs) host observable and dynamically active remnant planetary systems based on the presence of close-in circumstellar dust and gas and photospheric metal pollution. Currently-accepted theoretical explanations…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-22 Dimitri Veras , Zoe M. Leinhardt , Amy Bonsor , Boris T. Gaensicke

The accretion of tidally disrupted planetary bodies is the current consensus model for the presence of photospheric metals commonly detected in white dwarfs. While most dynamical studies have considered a single star and associated…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2024-03-21 Hiba Tu Noor , Jay Farihi , Mark Hollands , Silvia Toonen

White dwarfs with metal pollution are caused by the accretion of rocky dust from tidally disrupted minor bodies and are signposts for planetary systems. These minor bodies are perturbed by planets that have survived post-main sequence…

Increasing observations of white dwarf atmospheric pollution and disrupting planetesimals is driving increased studies into the fate of exo-asteroids around post-main-sequence stars. Planetesimal populations in the Solar System which are…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-02-15 Catriona H. McDonald , Dimitri Veras

Between 25-50 % of white dwarfs (WD) present atmospheric pollution by metals, mainly by rocky material, which has been detected as gas/dust discs, or in the form of photometric transits in some WDs. Planets might be responsible for…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-09-30 R. F. Maldonado , E. Villaver , A. J. Mustill , M. Chávez , E. Bertone

Polluted white dwarfs offer a unique way to study the bulk compositions of exoplanetary material, but it is not always clear if this material originates from comets, asteroids, moons, or planets. We combine N-body simulations with an…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-09-07 Isabella L Trierweiler , Alexandra E Doyle , Carl Melis , Kevin J Walsh , Edward D Young

The last several years have brought about a dynamic shift in the view of exoplanetary systems in the post-main sequence, perhaps epitomized by the evidence for surviving rocky planetary bodies at white dwarfs. Coinciding with the launch of…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2012-06-06 J. Farihi

About 25-50% of white dwarfs (WDs) show metal lines in their spectra. Among the widely accepted explanations for this effect is that the these WDs are accreting asteroids that are perhaps flung onto the WDs by a planet via resonance, for…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-05-31 Zeping Jin , Daohai Li , Zong-Hong Zhu

Planetary material accreted by white dwarfs provides unique insights regarding exoplanetary composition. The evolutionary pathways of planetary bodies around white dwarfs are crucial to understanding the presence of close-in planetary…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-06-26 Yuqi Li , Amy Bonsor , Oliver Shorttle

The surfaces of many white dwarfs are polluted by metals, implying a recent accretion event. The tidal disruption of planetesimals is a viable source of white dwarf pollution and offers a unique window into the composition of exoplanet…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2024-04-09 Tatsuya Akiba , Selah McIntyre , Ann-Marie Madigan

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-08-06 Dimitri Veras , Siegfried Eggl , Boris T. Gaensicke

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…

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-03-11 Dimitri Veras , Kosuke Kurosawa

Context. About 25% -- 50% of white dwarfs are found to be contaminated by heavy elements, which are believed to originate from external sources such as planetary materials. Elemental abundances suggest that most of the pollutants are rocky…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2024-05-29 Wen-Han Zhou , Shang-Fei Liu , Douglas N. C. Lin

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-01-05 Andrew M. Buchan , Amy Bonsor , Oliver Shorttle , Jon Wade , John Harrison , Lena Noack , Detlev Koester

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.…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-12-15 Dimitri Veras , Yusuf Birader , Uwais Zaman

A significant fraction of white dwarfs (WDs) exhibit signs of ongoing accretion of refractory elements at rates $\sim10^3$--$10^7$ kg s$^{-1}$, among which, 37 WDs were detected to harbor dusty debris disks. Such a concurrence requires not…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-05-17 Yun Zhang , Shang-Fei Liu , Douglas N. C. Lin