Related papers: Disks and Planets Around Massive White Dwarfs
White dwarfs are routinely observed to have polluted atmospheres, and sometimes significant infrared excesses, that indicate ongoing accretion of circumstellar dust and rocky debris. Typically this debris is assumed to be in the form of a…
Empirical evidence of planets in gas-rich circumstellar discs is required to constrain giant planet formation theories. Here we study the kinematic patterns which arise from planet-disc interactions and their observability in CO rotational…
This letter reports the first JWST spectroscopy of a white dwarf debris disk, giving a preliminary assessment of the salient features, and recommendations for future observations. The polluted and dusty star WD 0145+234 experienced a major…
It is difficult to study the interiors of terrestrial planets in the Solar System and the problem is magnified for distant exoplanets. However, sometimes nature is helpful. Some planetary bodies are torn to fragments and consumed by the…
Cold outer debris belts orbit a significant fraction of stars, many of which are planet-hosts. Radiative forces from the star lead to dust particles leaving the outer belts and spiralling inwards under Poynting-Robertson drag. We present an…
Cool M dwarfs outnumber sun-like G stars by ten to one in the solar neighborhood. Due to their proximity, small size, and low mass, M-dwarf stars are becoming attractive targets for exoplanet searches via almost all current search methods.…
White dwarfs have atmospheres that are expected to consist nearly entirely of hydrogen and helium, since heavier elements will sink out of sight on short timescales. However, observations have revealed atmospheric pollution by heavier…
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…
We report the discovery of two directly imaged, giant planet candidates orbiting the metal-rich DAZ white dwarfs WD 1202-232 and WD 2105-82. JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) data on these two stars show a nearby resolved source at a…
Almost every known planet host will evolve into a white dwarf, and the surviving planetary material will continue to orbit this stellar remnant. Asteroids perturbed onto star-grazing orbits will become disrupted, forming an accretion disk…
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…
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…
We present ISOCAM 7 micron and 15 micron observations of 12 nearby white dwarfs, 6 of which have been found to have metals such as Ca, Mg and Fe in their photospheres. Our purpose was to search for an excess of infrared emission above the…
We present near-infrared spectroscopic observations of 20 previously known DAZ white dwarfs obtained at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. Two of these white dwarfs (G29-38 and GD362) are known to display significant K-band excesses due…
We present limits on planetary companions to pulsating white dwarf stars. A subset of these stars exhibit extreme stability in the period and phase of some of their pulsation modes; a planet can be detected around such a star by searching…
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…
Gas-giant exoplanets are test cases for theories of planet formation as their atmospheres are proposed to carry signatures of their formation within the protoplanetary disk. The metallicity and C/O are key diagnostics, allowing to…
A recent cross-correlation between the SDSS DR7 White Dwarf Catalog with the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer ($WISE$) all-sky photometry at 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 microns performed by Debes et al. (2011) resulted in the discovery of 52…
As the sample of white dwarfs with signatures of planetary systems has grown, statistical studies have begun to suggest our picture of compact debris disk formation from disrupted planetary bodies is incomplete. Here we present the results…
Direct imaging surveys have found that long-period super-Jupiters are rare. By contrast, recent modeling of the widespread gaps in protoplanetary disks revealed by ALMA suggests an abundant population of smaller Neptune to Jupiter-mass…