Related papers: White dwarf systems: exoplanets and debris disks

Circumstellar debris disks are the extrasolar analogues of the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. They consist of comets and leftover planetesimals that continuously collide and produce circumstellar dust that can be observed as infrared…

White dwarfs are a class of stars with unique physical properties. They present many challenging problems whose solution requires the application of advanced theories of dense matter, state-of-the-art experimental techniques, and extensive…

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…

For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…

We predict the existence of dusty disks and possibly CO planets around massive white dwarfs. We show that the thermal emission from these disks should be detectable in the infrared. The planets may also be detectable either by direct IR…

A persistent question in exoplanet demographics is whether exoplanetary systems form from similar compositional building blocks to our own. Polluted white dwarf stars offer a unique way to address this question as they provide measurements…

Observations of debris disks, the products of the collisional evolution of rocky planetesimals, can be used to trace planetary activity across a wide range of stellar types. The most common end points of stellar evolution are no exception…

Main sequence stars, like the Sun, are often found to be orbited by circumstellar material that can be categorized into two groups, planets and debris. The latter is made up of asteroids and comets, as well as the dust and gas derived from…

As astronomers, we are living an exciting time for what concerns the search for other worlds. Recent discoveries have already deeply impacted our vision of planetary formation and architectures. Future bio-signature discoveries will…

'Debris disks' are collections of small bodies around stars, such as the Asteroid Belt and Kuiper Belt in our Solar System. These disks are composed of objects smaller than planets, including asteroids, comets, dust, and dwarf planets. We…

Exoplanetary science is a very active field of astronomy nowadays, with questions still opened such as how planetary systems form and evolve (occurrence, process), why such a diversity of exoplanets is observed (mass, radius, orbital…

The eccentric orbits of the known extrasolar giant planets provide evidence that most planet-forming environments undergo violent dynamical instabilities. Here, we numerically simulate the impact of giant planet instabilities on planetary…

Debris disks are evidence that stars harbor reservoirs of dust-producing plantesimals on spatial scales similar the solar system. Debris disks present a wide range of sizes and structural features and there is growing evidence that, in some…

Do white dwarfs host asteroid systems? Although several lines of argument suggest that white dwarfs may be orbited by large populations of asteroids, transits would provide the most direct evidence. We demonstrate that the Kepler mission…

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…

Our understanding of extra-solar planet systems is highly driven by advances in observations in the past decade. Thanks to high precision spectrograph, we are able to reveal unseen companions to stars with the radial velocity method. High…

White dwarfs that accrete the debris of tidally disrupted asteroids provide the opportunity to measure the bulk composition of the building blocks, or fragments, of exoplanets. This technique has established a diversity in compositions…

More than a decade after astronomers realized that disrupted planetary material likely pollutes the surfaces of many white dwarf stars, the discovery of transiting debris orbiting the white dwarf WD 1145+017 has opened the door to new…

This chapter reviews various methods of detecting planetary companions to stars from an observational perspective, focusing on radial velocities, astrometry, direct imaging, transits, and gravitational microlensing. For each method, this…

Planets form from the same cloud of molecular gas and dust as their host stars. Confirming if planetary bodies acquire the same refractory element composition as their natal disc during formation, and how efficiently volatile elements are…