A Search for Circumstellar Dust at SDSS White Dwarfs with K-Band Excess

Details A Search for Circumstellar Dust at SDSS White Dwarfs with K-Band Excess A Search for Circumstellar Dust at SDSS White Dwarfs with K-Band Excess

Apr 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009sptz.prop60113f&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #60113

Mathematics

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Scientific paper

We propose IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 micron observations of white dwarfs observed to have a K-band excess via cross-correlation of the the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS). We have searched tens of thousands of sources in SDSS DR7 with spectra (by eye) and/or photometry and identified a few thousand SDSS white dwarfs with good YJHK photometry in UKIDSS. Of those sources, we select the best seven candidates with a likely K-band excess to search with Spitzer / IRAC for confirmation of warm circumstellar dust. Our selection criteria should be both completely unbiased and highly efficient relative to previous white dwarf dust disk searches. There is now strong evidence that the closely orbiting dust disks at white dwarfs are caused by the tidal disruption of a minor planet or planets. In addition to producing an infrared excess, the debris also pollutes the otherwise pristine white dwarf atmosphere with metals, via accretion. Any confirmed dust disks will almost certainly have contaminated their white dwarf hosts, but metal absorption features cannot typically be seen in the relatively low S/N and low resolution SDSS spectra. However, ground- and space-based ultraviolet and optical spectroscopy of the heavy element abundances (at high resolution and superior S/N) will yield the bulk composition of the terrestrial, polluting material. Our targets represent high probability of dust disk detection and, if confirmed, will substantially increase the number of exoplanetary debris disks for which a bulk chemical composition can be obtained.

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