Other
Scientific paper
Mar 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008sptz.prop50340b&link_type=abstract
Spitzer Proposal ID #50340
Other
Scientific paper
Over the past decade there has been an explosion in the number of planets found around other stars, and yet, despite this, we have very little idea of the final fate of these planetary systems as their host stars evolve off the main sequence and become white dwarfs. While no planet has ever been found around a white dwarf, we have begun to piece together the puzzle of their fate with the discovery of debris disks around a number of isolated, metal-rich white dwarfs. White dwarfs are generally extremely metal-poor, since their high surface gravity causes heavy elements to settle out of their atmospheres in a matter of a few tens of years. Those that have metals in their atmospheres must therefore be accreting them from some external source. Recent research has shown that the metal abundances in these systems are too high for the system to be accreting from the ISM, and a more likely explanation is that most or all of them are accreting from some kind of circumstellar disk. Searches for debris disks around these metal-rich white dwarfs have been extremely successful, with estimates that up to 15-20% of them may have a dusty circumstellar disk. Despite this success rate, a large number of the bright, metal-rich white dwarfs in the McCook and Sion catalogue remain unobserved with Spitzer. We propose to observe all of the remaining bright metal-rich white dwarfs with IRAC and, where possible, IRS Peak-up imaging to search for debris disks in these systems. Modelling of these disks will answer a wide range of questions about the evolution and composition of both the disks and their planetary system progenitors.
Brinkworth Carolyn
Gaensicke Boris
Hoard Donald
Marsh Tom
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