Related papers: White dwarf systems: exoplanets and debris disks
Debris disks are optically thin, almost gas-free dusty disks observed around a significant fraction of main-sequence stars older than about 10 Myr. Since the circumstellar dust is short-lived, the very existence of these disks is considered…
The vast majority of stars that populate the Universe will end their evolution as white-dwarf stars. Applications of white dwarfs include cosmochronology, evolution of planetary systems, and also as laboratories to study non-standard…
I discuss the role that disc fragmentation plays in the formation of gas giant and terrestrial planets, and how this relates to the formation of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars, and ultimately to the process of star formation. Protostellar…
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…
There are many competing theories and models describing the formation, migration and evolution of exoplanet systems. As both the precision with which we can characterize exoplanets and their host stars, and the number of systems for which…
Roughly half of Solar-type planet hosts have stellar companions, so understanding how these binary companions affect the formation and evolution of planets is an important component to understanding planetary systems overall. Measuring the…
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…
Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the community studying the effect of ultraviolet radiation environment, predominantly set by OB stars, on protoplanetary disc evolution and planet formation. This is important because a…
This chapter reviews the current state of observational and theoretical efforts in the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres, with a focus on developments enabled through the Swiss National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR)…
A key to understand exoplanets is characterisation of their host stars. One of the most powerful tools to characterise stellar properties like effective temperature, surface gravity and metallicity, is spectroscopy based on observations of…
Planetary systems commonly survive the evolution of single stars, as evidenced by terrestrial-like planetesimal debris observed orbiting and polluting the surfaces of white dwarfs. This letter reports the identification of a circumbinary…
Nearly all known white dwarf planetary systems contain detectable rocky debris in the stellar photosphere. A glaring exception is the young and still evolving white dwarf WD J0914+1914, which instead harbours a giant planet and a disc of…
A major goal in the discovery and characterisation of exoplanets is to identify terrestrial-type worlds that are similar to (or otherwise distinct from) our Earth. Recent results have highlighted the importance of applying devolatilisation…
Planets are born from the gas and dust discs surrounding young stars. Energetic radiation from the central star can drive thermal outflows from the discs atmospheres, strongly affecting the evolution of the discs and the nascent planetary…
White dwarfs are the most common endpoints of stellar evolution. They are often found in close binary systems in which the white dwarf is accreting matter from a companion star, either via an accretion disc or channelled along the white…
The $\beta$ Pictoris system is characterized by a dusty debris disk, in addition to the presence of two already known planets. This makes it a particularly interesting case for studying the formation and evolution of planetary systems at a…
White dwarfs are the remnants of stars not massive enough to become supernovae. This review explores the concept of strange dwarfs, a unique class of white dwarfs which contain cores of strange quark matter. Strange dwarfs have different…
We utilize observations of 16 white dwarf stars to calculate and analyze the oxidation states of the parent bodies accreting onto the stars. Oxygen fugacity, a measure of overall oxidation state for rocks, is as important as pressure and…
The goal of planet formation as a field of study is not only to provide the understanding of how planets come into existence. It is also an interdisciplinary bridge which links astronomy to geology and mineralogy. Recent observations of…
During the final evolution of most stars, they shed their outer skin and expose their core of the hot ashes of nuclear burning. As these hot and very dense cores cool into white dwarf stars, they go through episodes of multiperiodic,…