Related papers: Do White Dwarfs Sample Water-Rich Planetary Materi…

We live in an exoplanet revolution, with more than 5,000 exoplanets detected to date. Our ability to characterise individual exoplanets is constantly improving, with exquisite mass and radius measurements for an ever-growing sample of…

Prior studies have hypothesized that some polluted white dwarfs record continent-like granitic crust--which is abundant on Earth and perhaps uniquely indicative of plate tectonics. But these inferences derive from only a few elements, none…

We have searched for evidence for dust and gas disks at a sample of hot DA white dwarfs 20 000K < Teff < 50 000K, without success. Although their atmospheres are polluted with heavy elements, we cannot yet convincingly and conclusively show…

Accreting white dwarfs (WDs) with non-degenerate companions are expected to emit in soft X-rays and the UV, if accreted H-rich material burns stably. They are an important component of the unresolved emission of elliptical galaxies, and…

With XMM-Newton and the Spitzer Space Telescope, we obtain upper bounds to the X-ray fluxes from G29-38 and GD 362, and the 70 micron flux from G29-38. These data provide indirect evidence that G29-38 is accreting from a tidally-disrupted…

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…

White dwarfs represent the most common end stage of stellar evolution and are important for a range of astrophysical questions. The high-resolution ultraviolet spectroscopic capability of the Habitable World Observatory (HWO) offers a…

Approximately 25-50% of white dwarfs (WDs) exhibit metal absorption lines in their photospheres, which are attributed to accretion from their remnant planetary systems. Although white dwarfs with detected planetary systems are more likely…

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…

We present a series of systematic abundance measurements for 89 hot DA white dwarfs drawn from the FUSE observation archive. These stars span the temperature range ~ 20000-70000K, and form the largest sample to-date, exceeding our earlier…

Tidal disruption and subsequent accretion of planetesimals by white dwarfs can reveal the elemental abundances of rocky bodies in exoplanetary systems. Those abundances provide information on the composition of the nebula from which the…

We present a detailed study of the metal-polluted DB white dwarf SDSS J0845+2257 (Ton 345). Using high-resolution HST/COS and VLT spectroscopy, we have detected hydrogen and eleven metals in the atmosphere of the white dwarf. The origin of…

About 25\% -50\% of white dwarfs (WDs) are found to be polluted by heavy elements. It has been argued that the pollution could be caused by the tidal disruption of an approaching planet around the WD, during which a large number of clumps…

Recent Kepler photometry has revealed that about half of white dwarfs (WDs) have periodic, low-level (~ 1e-4 - 1e-3), optical variations. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) ultraviolet spectroscopy has shown that up to about one half of WDs are…

White dwarfs are the end state of most stars, including the Sun, after they exhaust their nuclear fuel. Between 1/4 and 1/2 of white dwarfs have elements heavier than helium in their atmospheres, even though these elements should rapidly…

In this article we describe the search for white dwarfs (WDs) in the multi-band photometric data of the Capodimonte deep field survey. The WD candidates were selected through the V-R_C vs B-V color-color diagram. For two bright objects, the…

Between 30 - 50% of white dwarfs (WDs) show heavy elements in their atmospheres. This "pollution" is thought to arise from the accretion of planetesimals perturbed by outer planet(s) to within the WD's tidal disruption radius. A small…

Pulsating white dwarfs provide constraints to the evolution of progenitor stars. We revise He-burning stellar models, with particular attention to core convection and to its connection with the nuclear reactions powering energy generation…

Metal pollution in white dwarf atmospheres is likely to be a signature of remnant planetary systems. Most explanations for this pollution predict a sharp decrease in the number of polluted systems with white dwarf cooling age. Observations…

The behaviour of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs (WDs) subject to direct helium accretion is extensively studied. We aim to analyze the thermal response of the accreting WD to mass deposition at different time scales. The analysis has been…