Related papers: The smallest planetary drivers of white dwarf poll…

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…

White dwarfs represent the last stage of evolution of stars with mass less than about eight times that of the Sun and, like other stars, are often found in binaries. If the orbital period of the binary is short enough, energy losses from…

The evolution of planetary systems around white dwarfs is crucial to understanding the presence of planetary material in the atmospheres of white dwarfs. These systems uniquely probe exoplanetary compositions. Periodic signals in the…

Planets and other low-mass binary companions to stars face a variety of potential fates as their host stars move off the main sequence and grow to subgiants and giants. Stellar mass loss tends to make orbits expand, and tidal torques tend…

Despite the recent discoveries of planets orbiting stars at all evolutionary stages, the evolution of planetary systems remains poorly understood. Studying planetary systems around red giant branch stars can reveal how main sequence…

Practically all known planet hosts will evolve into white dwarfs, and large parts of their planetary systems will survive this transition - the same is true for the solar system beyond the orbit of Mars. Spectroscopy of white dwarfs…

The ultimate fates of binary companions to stars (including whether the companion survives and the final orbit of the binary) are of interest in light of an increasing number of recently discovered, low-mass companions to white dwarfs…

We present new results on PHL 5038AB, a widely separated binary system composed of a white dwarf and a brown dwarf, refining the white and brown dwarf parameters and determining the binary separation to be $66^{+12}_{-24}$~AU. New spectra…

The formation channel of the tens of compact debris discs which orbit white dwarfs (WDs) at a distance of one Solar radius remains unknown. Asteroids that survive the giant branch stellar phases beyond a few au are assumed to be dynamically…

With recent observations confirming exoplanets orbiting white dwarfs, there is growing interest in exploring and quantifying the habitability of temperate rocky planets around white dwarfs. In this work, the limits of the habitable zone of…

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…

We present a population synthesis model which addresses the different mass distributions of the metal-polluted and non-metal-polluted hydrogen-atmosphere white dwarfs identified in volume-limited samples. Specifically, metal-pollution has…

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 accretion of planetesimals onto white dwarf atmospheres allows determination of the composition of this polluting material. This composition is usually inferred from observed pollution levels by assuming it originated from a single…

The infrared dust emission from the white dwarf GD 56 is found to rise and fall by 20% peak-to-peak over 11.2 yr, and is consistent with ongoing dust production and depletion. It is hypothesized that the dust is produced via collisions…

The potential existence of a distant planet ("Planet Nine") in the Solar system has prompted a re-think about the evolution of planetary systems. As the Sun transitions from a main sequence star into a white dwarf, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus…

Results from a groundbased high contrast imaging survey of thirteen nearby white dwarfs for substellar objects is presented. We place strict upper limits on the type of substellar objects present, ruling out the presence of anything larger…

Metal pollution in white dwarf atmospheres may be the accreted remnants of planetary objects. After the discovery of disintegrating planetary objects transiting WD 1145+017 (Vanderburg et al. 2015), undergraduates in the University of…

White dwarfs are the burnt out cores of Sun-like stars and are the final fate of 97% of all stars in our Galaxy. The internal structure and composition of white dwarfs are hidden by their high gravities, which causes all elements, apart…

Although white dwarfs are believed to be the end point of most stellar evolution, unlike main sequence stars, they have not yet been the subject of dedicated time-domain surveys for exoplanets. We discuss how their size and distinctive…