Swan, Andrew;
Farihi, Jay;
Melis, Carl;
Dufour, Patrick;
Desch, Steven J;
Koester, Detlev;
Guo, Jincheng;
(2023)
Planetesimals at DZ stars – I. Chondritic compositions and a massive accretion event.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
, 526
(3)
pp. 3815-3831.
10.1093/mnras/stad2867.
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Abstract
There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that planetary systems can survive beyond the main sequence. Most commonly, white dwarfs are found to be accreting material from tidally disrupted asteroids, whose bulk compositions are reflected by the metals polluting the stellar photospheres. While many examples are known, most lack the deep, high-resolution data required to detect multiple elements, and thus characterize the planetesimals that orbit them. Here, spectra of seven DZ white dwarfs observed with Keck High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) are analysed, where up to nine metals are measured per star. Their compositions are compared against those of Solar system objects, working in a Bayesian framework to infer or marginalize over the accretion history. All of the stars have been accreting primitive material, similar to chondrites, with hints of a Mercury-like composition at one star. The most polluted star is observed several Myr after its last major accretion episode, in which a Moon-sized object met its demise.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Planetesimals at DZ stars – I. Chondritic compositions and a massive accretion event |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/mnras/stad2867 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2867 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Stars: abundances – circumstellar matter – stars: individual: SDSS J095645.15 + 591240.6 – planetary systems – white dwarfs |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10181406 |
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