A circumbinary debris disk in a polluted white dwarf system
Abstract
Planetary systems commonly survive the evolution of single stars, as evidenced by terrestrial-like planetesimal debris observed orbiting and polluting the surfaces of white dwarfs 1,2 . Here, we report the identification of a circumbinary dust disk surrounding a white dwarf with a substellar companion in a 2.27 h orbit. The system bears the dual hallmarks of atmospheric metal pollution and infrared excess 3,4 ; however, the standard (flat and opaque) disk configuration is dynamically precluded by the binary. Instead, the detected reservoir of debris must lie well beyond the Roche limit in an optically thin configuration, where erosion by stellar irradiation is relatively rapid. This finding shows that rocky planetesimal formation is robust around close binaries, even those with low mass ratios.
- Publication:
-
Nature Astronomy
- Pub Date:
- March 2017
- DOI:
- 10.1038/s41550-016-0032
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1612.05259
- Bibcode:
- 2017NatAs...1E..32F
- Keywords:
-
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- accepted to Nature Astronomy, this is the authors' version