Related papers: Spitzer Search for Mid-IR Excesses Around Five DAZ…

Elements heavier than hydrogen or helium that are present in the atmospheres of white dwarfs with effective temperatures lower than 25,000 K, are believed to be the result of accretion. By measuring the abundances of these elements and by…

We present the Planetary Enriched White Dwarf Database (PEWDD), a collection of published photospheric abundances of white dwarfs accreting planetary debris alongside additional information relevant to metal-enrichment and the presence of…

We report 4.5 micron luminosities for 27 nearby (D < 5 Mpc) dwarf irregular galaxies measured with the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera. We have constructed the 4.5 micron luminosity-metallicity (L-Z) relation for 25 dwarf galaxies with secure…

We present the result of the cross-matching between UV-excess sources selected from the UV-excess survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (UVEX) and several infrared surveys (2MASS, UKIDSS and WISE). From the position in the (J-H) vs. (H-K)…

White dwarfs represent the endpoint of stellar evolution for stars with initial masses between approximately 0.07 msun and 8-10 msun, where msun is the mass of the Sun (more massive stars end their life as either black holes or neutron…

Using observations of Spitzer/IRAC, we report the serendipitous discovery of excess infrared emission from a single white dwarf PG 0010+280. At a temperature of 27,220 K and a cooling age of 16 Myr, it is the hottest and youngest white…

Spitzer observations reveal the presence of warm debris from a tidally destroyed rocky and possibly icy planetary body orbiting the white dwarf GD 61. Ultraviolet and optical spectroscopy of the metal-contaminated stellar photosphere reveal…

White dwarfs (WDs) showing transits from orbiting planetary debris provide significant insights into the structure and dynamics of debris disks. This is a rare class of objects with only eight published systems. In this work, we perform a…

Classical DQ stars are white dwarfs whose atmospheres contain detectable traces of carbon brought up to the surface by a convective dredge-up process. Intriguingly, unlike other white dwarf spectral classes, DQ stars virtually never show…

We compute that extrasolar minor planets can retain much of their internal H_2O during their host star's red giant evolution. The eventual accretion of a water-rich body or bodies onto a helium white dwarf might supply an observable amount…

The study of planetesimal debris accreted by white dwarfs offers unique insights into the composition of exoplanets. Using far-ultraviolet and optical spectroscopy, we have analysed the composition of planetesimals accreted by three metal…

Due to their high photospheric density, cool helium-rich white dwarfs (particularly DZ, DQpec and ultracool) are often poorly described by current atmosphere models. As part of our ongoing efforts to design atmosphere models suitable for…

We systematically investigate the mergers of neutron star-white dwarf binaries from beginning to end, with focus on the properties of the inflows and outflows in accretion disks and their electromagnetic emissions. Using population…

We report on new FUSE far-UV spectroscopy of the most metal-poor blue compact dwarf galaxy I Zw 18. The new data represent an improvement over previous FUSE spectra by a factor of 1.7 in the signal-to-noise. Together with a larger spectral…

WD 1145+017 is the first white dwarf known to be orbited by disintegrating exoasteroids. It is a DBZ-type white dwarf with strongly variable broad circumstellar lines and variable shallow UV transits. Various models of the dust clouds and…

It has long been suspected that metal polluted white dwarfs (types DAZ, DBZ, and DZ) and white dwarfs with dusty disks possess planetary systems, but a specific physical mechanism by which planetesimals are perturbed close to a white dwarf…

Context. White dwarfs (WDs) in cataclysmic variables (CVs) are important experimental laboratories where the electron degeneracy is taking place on a macroscopic scale. Magnetic CVs increase in number especially in the hard X-ray band (>10…

Due to the short settling times of metals in DA white dwarf atmospheres, any white dwarfs with photospheric metals must be actively accreting. It is therefore natural to expect that the metals may not be deposited uniformly on the surface…

Accreting white dwarfs are known to show signatures of wind-type outflows in the ultraviolet. At optical wavelengths, however, wind detections have only been reported for a few sources. We present GTC-10.4m optical spectroscopy of four…

About 25-50% of white dwarfs (WDs) show metal lines in their spectra. Among the widely accepted explanations for this effect is that the these WDs are accreting asteroids that are perhaps flung onto the WDs by a planet via resonance, for…