Related papers: Planetary Systems Around White Dwarfs
White dwarf stars are the most common final stage of stellar evolution. Since the serendipitous discovery of the first white dwarf by William Herschel and the first physical models by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Arthur Eddington, there…
The space density of white dwarfs is highly uncertain even nearby. This results from the fact that the known sample of white dwarfs is largely incomplete in part because most white dwarfs have been discovered as by-products in non-dedicated…
Exploring dark matter via observations of extreme astrophysical environments -- defined here as heavy compact objects such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, as well as supernovae and compact object merger events -- has been a…
With the development of high contrast imaging techniques and infrared detectors, vast efforts have been devoted during the past decade to detect and characterize lighter, cooler and closer companions to nearby stars, and ultimately image…
This review article delves into the study of low-mass exoplanets: super-Earths, mini-Neptunes and the new categories within and between that we are starting to discover. We provide an overview of current exoplanet observational…
Giant planets acquire gas, ices and rocks during the early formation stages of planetary systems and thus inform us on the formation process itself. Proceeding from inside out, examining the connections between the deep interiors and the…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
The study of the last stages of planet formation, also known as debris disks, is fundamental to place constrains on the formation of planetary sized bodies. Debris disks are composed of dust and occasionally small amounts of gas, both…
The detection of brown dwarfs in globular star clusters will allow us to break the degeneracies in age, mass and composition that affect our current models, and therefore to constrain the physics of their atmospheres and interiors.…
The near-term search for life beyond the solar system currently focuses on transiting planets orbiting small M dwarfs, and the challenges of detecting signs of life in their atmospheres. However, planets orbiting white dwarfs (WDs) would…
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…
Observations of brown dwarfs provide important feedback on theories of atmospheres and inner structure of substellar objects. Brown dwarf binary systems furthermore offer the unique opportunity to determine the mass of individual brown…
Close, compact, hierarchical, multiple stellar systems, i.e., multiples having an outer orbital period from months to a few years, comprise a small, but continuously growing group of the triple and multiple star zoo. Many of them consist of…
The occurrence rate of young giant planets from direct imaging surveys is a fundamental tracer of the efficiency with which planets form and migrate at wide orbital distances. These measurements have progressively converged to a value of…
This White Paper describes the opportunities for discovery of Jupiter-mass objects with 300K atmospheres. The discovery and characterization of such cold objects is vital for understanding the low-mass terminus of the initial mass function…
The detection of a dust disc around G29-38 and transits from debris orbiting WD1145+017 confirmed that the photospheric trace metals found in many white dwarfs arise from the accretion of tidally disrupted planetesimals. The composition of…
We discuss the feasibility of using astrophysical observations of white dwarfs as probes of fundamental physics. We quantify the effects of varying fundamental couplings on the white dwarf mass-radius relation in a broad class of…
This is a scientific strategy for the detection and characterization of extrasolar planets; that is, planets orbiting other stars. As such, it maps out over a 15-year horizon the techniques and capabilities required to detect and measure…
Previous work has demonstrated that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has the capability to detect transiting planets around main sequence stars in relatively short ($<$ 20 days) periods and using standard algorithms for transit…
The study of planets outside our solar system may lead to major advances in our understanding of the Earth, and provide insight into the universal set of rules by which planets form and evolve. To achieve these goals requires applying…