Ancient planetary systems are orbiting a large fraction of white dwarf stars

Abstract

Infrared studies have revealed debris likely related to planet formation in orbit around ~30% of youthful, intermediate mass, main sequence stars. We present evidence, based on atmospheric pollution by various elements heavier than helium, that a comparable fraction of the white dwarf descendants of such main sequence stars are orbited by planetary systems. These systems have survived, at least in part, through all stages of stellar evolution that precede the white dwarf. During the time interval (~200 million years) that a typical polluted white dwarf in our sample has been cooling it has accreted from its planetary system the mass of one of the largest asteroids in our solar system (e.g., Vesta or Ceres). Usually, this accreted mass will be only a fraction of the total mass of rocky material that orbits these white dwarfs; for plausible planetary system configurations we estimate that this total mass is likely to be at least equal to that of the Sun's asteroid belt, and perhaps much larger. We report abundances of a suite of 8 elements detected in the little studied star G241-6 that we find to be among the most heavily polluted of all moderately bright white dwarfs.

31 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for the Astrophysical J

References in corpus (20)

• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• Debris Disk Evolution Around A Stars
• A gaseous metal disk around a white dwarf
• The Chemical Composition of an Extrasolar Minor Planet
• Debris disks around Sun-like stars
• Pollution of single white dwarfs by accretion of many small asteroids
• Externally-polluted white dwarfs with dust disks
• On the Spectral Evolution of Cool, Helium-Atmosphere White Dwarfs: Detailed Spectroscopic and Photometric Analysis of DZ Stars
• Debris Disks Around White Dwarfs: The DAZ Connection
• Carbon Deficiency in Externally-Polluted White Dwarfs: Evidence for Accretion of Asteroids
• Six White Dwarfs with Circumstellar Silicates
• The accretion-diffusion scenario for metals in cool white dwarfs
• Spitzer/MIPS Observations of Stars in the Beta Pictoris Moving Group
• The Discovery of the Most Metal-Rich White Dwarf: Composition of a Tidally Disrupted Extrasolar Dwarf Planet
• Infrared Emission from the Dusty Disk Orbiting GD 362, An Externally-Polluted White Dwarf
• The Ratio of Helium- to Hydrogen-Atmosphere White Dwarfs: Direct Evidence for Convective Mixing
• X-ray and Infrared Observations of Two Externally-Polluted White Dwarfs
• Debris Disks in NGC 2547
• A Spitzer Study of Debris Disks In The Young Nearby Cluster NGC 2232: Icy Planets Are Common Around ~ 1.5--3 Solar-Mass Stars
• Near-Infrared Constraints on the Presence of Warm Dust at Metal-Rich, Helium Atmosphere White Dwarfs

Cited by in corpus (258)

• A disintegrating minor planet transiting a white dwarf
• The frequency of planetary debris around young white dwarfs
• The Link Between Planetary Systems, Dusty White Dwarfs, and Metal Polluted White Dwarfs
• Circumstellar Debris and Pollution at White Dwarf Stars
• Dynamical effects of stellar mass loss on a Kuiper-like belt
• Formation of planetary debris discs around white dwarfs I: Tidal disruption of an extremely eccentric asteroid
• The impact of companions on stellar evolution
• A planetesimal orbiting within the debris disc around a white dwarf star
• Eccentric Planets and Stellar Evolution as a Cause of Polluted White Dwarfs
• Elemental Compositions of Two Extrasolar Rocky Planetesimals
• Global Models of Runaway Accretion in White Dwarf Debris Disks
• On the Orbits of Low-mass Companions to White Dwarfs and the Fates of the Known Exoplanets
• Constraints on the Lifetimes of Disks Resulting from Tidally Destroyed Rocky Planetary Bodies
• Cool DZ white dwarfs II: Compositions and evolution of old remnant planetary systems
• The frequency and infrared brightness of circumstellar discs at white dwarfs
• An aluminum/calcium-rich, iron-poor, white dwarf star: evidence for an extrasolar planetary lithosphere?
• The Chemical Composition of an Extrasolar Kuiper-Belt-Object
• Oxygen fugacities of extrasolar rocks: Evidence for an Earth-like geochemistry of exoplanets
• The WIRED Survey II: Infrared Excesses in the SDSS DR7 White Dwarf Catalog
• Detailed compositional analysis of the heavily polluted DBZ white dwarf SDSS J073842.56+183509.06: A window on planet formation?
• Analysis of Helium-Rich White Dwarfs Polluted by Heavy Elements in the Gaia Era
• Stochastic accretion of planetesimals onto white dwarfs: constraints on the mass distribution of accreted material from atmospheric pollution
• $Gaia$ white dwarfs within 40 pc II: the volume-limited northern hemisphere sample
• Likely detection of water-rich asteroid debris in a metal-polluted white dwarf
• Two Beyond-Primitive Extrasolar Planetesimals
• Transit surveys for Earths in the habitable zones of white dwarfs
• Detectable close-in planets around white dwarfs through late unpacking
• Drifting Asteroid Fragments Around WD 1145+017
• Rocky Extrasolar Planetary Compositions Derived from Externally-Polluted White Dwarfs
• A White Dwarf with Transiting Circumstellar Material Far Outside the Roche Limit
• The unbiased frequency of planetary signatures around single and binary white dwarfs using $Spitzer$ and $Hubble$
• Signs of a faint disc population at polluted white dwarfs
• The Frequency of Debris Disks at White Dwarfs
• Variable Emission from a Gaseous Disc around a Metal-Polluted White Dwarf
• Spitzer Observations of White Dwarfs: the Missing Planetary Debris Around DZ Stars
• Scars of Intense Accretion Episodes at Metal-Rich White Dwarfs
• Water Fractions in Extrasolar Planetesimals
• Hydrogen delivery onto white dwarfs from remnant exo-Oort cloud comets
• Kronos & Krios: Evidence for accretion of a massive, rocky planetary system in a comoving pair of solar-type stars
• Planetary engulfment as a trigger for white dwarf pollution
• Accretion of a Terrestrial-Like Minor Planet by a White Dwarf
• Compositions of Planetary Debris around Dusty White Dwarfs
• The formation of the solar system
• Full-lifetime simulations of multiple unequal-mass planets across all phases of stellar evolution
• Two Extrasolar Asteroids with Low Volatile-Element Mass Fractions
• Throwing Icebergs at White Dwarfs
• Low Mg/Si planetary host stars and their Mg-depleted terrestrial planets
• Precise Atmospheric Parameters for the Shortest Period Binary White Dwarfs: Gravitational Waves, Metals, and Pulsations
• A wide binary trigger for white dwarf pollution
• Numerical Simulations of Collisional Cascades at the Roche Limits of White Dwarf Stars
• Explaining the variability of WD 1145+017 with simulations of asteroid tidal disruption
• Gaseous Material Orbiting the Polluted, Dusty White Dwarf HE1349-2305
• 26Al in the Early Solar System: Not so Unusual After All
• Evolution of Planetary Orbits with Stellar Mass Loss and Tidal Dissipation
• Tidal disruption of planetary bodies by white dwarfs I: A hybrid SPH-analytical approach
• Trace hydrogen in helium atmosphere white dwarfs as a possible signature of water accretion
• The Compositional Diversity of Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets: II. Migration Simulations
• The frequency of gaseous debris discs around white dwarfs
• The orbital evolution of asteroids, pebbles and planets from giant branch stellar radiation and winds
• White Dwarf Pollution by Asteroids from Secular Resonances
• Liberating exomoons in white dwarf planetary systems
• Convective Overshoot and Macroscopic Diffusion in Pure-Hydrogen Atmosphere White Dwarfs
• The WIRED Survey I: A Bright IR Excess Due to Dust Around the Heavily Polluted White Dwarf GALEX J193156.8+011745
• Are exoplanetesimals differentiated?
• The Occurrence of Wide-Orbit Planets in Binary Star Systems
• Tidal disruption of planetary bodies by white dwarfs II: Debris disc structure and ejected interstellar asteroids
• The Magnetic and Metallic Degenerate G77-50
• Infrared observations of white dwarfs and the implications for the accretion of dusty planetary material
• Carbon to oxygen ratios in extrasolar planetesimals
• The occurrence of planets and other substellar bodies around white dwarfs using K2
• The WIRED Survey. IV. New Dust Disks from the McCook & Sion White Dwarf Catalog
• Multiwavelength Transit Observations of the Candidate Disintegrating Planetesimals Orbiting WD 1145+017
• Spectroscopic Evolution of Disintegrating Planetesimals: Minutes to Months Variability in the Circumstellar Gas Associated with WD 1145+017
• WD 1145+017 Photometric Observations During 8 Months of High Activity
• Recurring Planetary Debris Transits and Circumstellar Gas around White Dwarf ZTF J0328$-$1219
• WD 1856 b: a close giant planet around a white dwarf that could have survived a common-envelope phase
• Deposition of steeply infalling debris around white dwarf stars
• The Spectral Energy Distributions of White Dwarfs in 47 Tucanae: The Distance to the Cluster
• Accretion from debris disks onto white dwarfs : Fingering (thermohaline) instability and derived accretion rates
• A search for planetary eclipses of white dwarfs in the Pan-STARRS1 medium-deep fields
• Giant Planets, Tiny Stars: Producing Short-Period Planets around White Dwarfs with the Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Mechanism
• Detecting bio-markers in habitable-zone earths transiting white dwarfs
• The Degree of Fine-Tuning in our Universe -- and Others
• Detection of Weak Circumstellar Gas around the DAZ White Dwarf WD 1124-293: Evidence for the Accretion of Multiple Asteroids
• The Fate of Exomoons in White Dwarf Planetary Systems
• Herschel Observations of Debris Discs Orbiting Planet-hosting Subgiants
• White dwarfs with planetary remnants in the era of Gaia I: six emission line systems
• Serendipitous Discovery of Nine White Dwarfs With Gaseous Debris Disks
• Enhanced Lidov-Kozai migration and the formation of the transiting giant planet WD1856+534b
• Listening to the gravitational wave sound of circumbinary exoplanets
• Eating Planets for Lunch and Dinner: Signatures of Planet Consumption by Evolving Stars
• Evidence for eccentric, precessing gaseous debris in the circumstellar absorption towards WD 1145+017
• Gray transits of WD 1145+017 over the visible band
• Polluted White Dwarfs Reveal Exotic Mantle Rock Types on Exoplanets in our Solar Neighborhood
• Horizontal spreading of planetary debris accreted by white dwarfs
• Infrared Excesses around Bright White Dwarfs from Gaia and unWISE I
• Exoplanet recycling in massive white-dwarf debris discs
• Sublimation-induced orbital perturbations of extrasolar active asteroids and comets: application to white dwarf systems
• Post main sequence evolution of icy minor planets: Implications for water retention and white dwarf pollution
• A road-map to white dwarf pollution: Tidal disruption, eccentric grind-down, and dust accretion
• Infrared Variability of Two Dusty White Dwarfs
• A dearth of small particles in the transiting material around the white dwarf WD 1145+017
• Circularization of tidal debris around white dwarfs: implications for gas production and dust variability
• Evidence of enhanced magnetism in cool, polluted white dwarfs
• Evidence for Gas from a Disintegrating Extrasolar Asteroid
• The fates of Solar system analogues with one additional distant planet
• Exocomets from a Solar System Perspective
• The Hyades Cluster: Identification of a Planetary System and Escaping White Dwarfs
• Lithium pollution of a white dwarf records the accretion of an extrasolar planetesimal
• Sirius B Imaged in the Mid-Infrared: No Evidence for a Remnant Planetary System
• Simultaneous infrared and optical observations of the transiting debris cloud around WD 1145+017
• Speeding past planets? Asteroids radiatively propelled by giant branch Yarkovsky effects
• Evolution of Planetary Systems with Time Dependent Stellar Mass Loss
• Mass and eccentricity constraints on the planetary debris orbiting the white dwarf WD 1145+017
• The habitability and detection of Earth-like planets orbiting cool white dwarfs
• Extrasolar Refractory-Dominated Planetesimals: an Assessment
• Linking long-term planetary $N$-body simulations with periodic orbits: application to white dwarf pollution
• Fast spectrophotometry of WD 1145+017
• Spectral analysis of ultra-cool white dwarfs polluted by planetary debris
• Post-main-sequence debris from rotation-induced YORP break-up of small bodies II: multiple fissions, internal strengths and binary production
• Host-star and exoplanet compositions: a pilot study usinga wide binary with a polluted white dwarf
• Non-LTE models for the gaseous metal component of circumstellar discs around white dwarfs
• Icy Exomoons Evidenced by Spallogenic Nuclides in Polluted White Dwarfs
• The spectral evolution of white dwarfs: where do we stand?
• Scattering of exocomets by a planet chain: exozodi levels and the delivery of cometary material to inner planets
• Planet Engulfment Detections are Rare According to Observations and Stellar Modeling
• New chondritic bodies identified in eight oxygen-bearing white dwarfs
• WD 1145+017: Optical Activity During 2016-2017 and Limits on the X-Ray Flux
• Constraining the origin of the planetary debris surrounding ZTF J0139+5245 through rotational fission of a triaxial asteroid
• Binary star influence on post-main-sequence multi-planet stability
• Collisions in a gas-rich white dwarf planetary debris disc
• A New Method for Finding Nearby White Dwarf Exoplanets and Detecting Biosignatures
• High-eccentricity migration of planetesimals around polluted white dwarfs
• ALMA and Herschel Observations of the Prototype Dusty and Polluted White Dwarf G29-38
• GD424 -- a helium-atmosphere white dwarf with a large amount of trace hydrogen in the process of digesting a rocky planetesimal
• Heavy metals in a light white dwarf: Abundances of the metal-rich, extremely low-mass GALEX J1717+6757
• Post main sequence evolution of icy minor planets II: water retention and white dwarf pollution around massive progenitor stars
• Effects of non-Kozai mutual inclinations on two-planet system stability through all phases of stellar evolution
• Extrasolar comets : the origin of dust in exozodiacal disks?
• Circumbinary exoplanets and brown dwarfs with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Once in a blue moon: detection of 'bluing' during debris transits in the white dwarf WD1145+017
• Where are the Extrasolar Mercuries?
• The dynamical history of the evaporating or disrupted ice giant planet around white dwarf WD J0914+1914
• Post-main-sequence evolution of icy minor planets. III. water retention in dwarf planets and exo-moons and implications for white dwarf pollution
• Importance of fingering convection for accreting white dwarfs in the framework of full evolutionary calculations: the case of the hydrogen-rich white dwarfs GD133 and G29-38
• PEWDD: A database of white dwarfs enriched by exo-planetary material
• Driving white dwarf metal pollution through unstable eccentric periodic orbits
• On the detectability of transiting planets orbiting white dwarfs using LSST
• Asynchronous accretion can mimic diverse white dwarf pollutants I: core and mantle fragments
• Exomoons as sources of white dwarf pollution
• Secular chaos in white-dwarf planetary systems: origins of metal pollution and short-period planetary companions
• An Extreme-AO Search for Giant Planets around a White Dwarf --VLT/SPHERE performance on a faint target GD 50
• Shallow Ultraviolet Transits of WD 1145+017
• Ohmic heating of asteroids around magnetic stars
• Orbit decay of 2-100 au planetary remnants around white dwarfs with no gravitational assistance from planets
• How Sublimation Delays the Onset of Dusty Debris Disk Formation Around White Dwarf Stars
• Magnetospherically-trapped dust and a possible model for the unusual transits at WD 1145+017
• Chaotic rotation and evolution of asteroids and small planets in high-eccentricity orbits around white dwarfs
• Dynamical mass and multiplicity constraints on co-orbital bodies around stars
• On the bio-habitability of M-dwarf planets
• Formation of eccentric gas discs from sublimating or partially disrupted asteroids orbiting white dwarfs
• Near-infrared variability in dusty white dwarfs: tracing the accretion of planetary material
• Metal pollution of the solar white dwarf by solar system small bodies
• Kepler-1656b's Extreme Eccentricity: Signature of a Gentle Giant
• Spectral feature extraction for DB white dwarfs through machine learning applied to new discoveries in the SDSS DR12 and DR14
• Survivability of radio-loud planetary cores orbiting white dwarfs
• On the role of resonances in polluting white dwarfs by asteroids
• Linking the formation and fate of exo-Kuiper belts within solar system analogues
• The Influence of Tidal Heating on the Habitability of Planets Orbiting White Dwarfs
• The critical binary star separation for a planetary system origin of white dwarf pollution
• Necroplanetology: Simulating the Tidal Disruption of Differentiated Planetary Material Orbiting WD 1145+017
• Evolutionary Constraints on the Planet-Hosting Subgiant Epsilon Reticulum from its White Dwarf Companion
• Modeling the Evolution of Silicate/Volatile Accretion Discs around White Dwarfs
• The entry geometry and velocity of planetary debris into the Roche sphere of a white dwarf
• A simple bound for the variation at closest approach of a small body and star due to general relativity
• LISA Detection of Binary Black Holes in the Milky Way Galaxy
• Rapid Formation of Exoplanetesimals Revealed by White Dwarfs
• Extreme abundance ratios in the polluted atmosphere of the cool white dwarf NLTT19868
• Asynchronous accretion can mimic diverse white dwarf pollutants II: water content
• An Upper Bound to the Space Density of Interstellar Comets
• Prevalence of short-lived radioactive isotopes across exoplanetary systems inferred from polluted white dwarfs
• Evidence of Rocky Planetesimals Orbiting Two Hyades Stars
• Astrometric Gravitational-Wave Detection via Stellar Interferometry
• The smallest planetary drivers of white dwarf pollution
• Spectral analysis of cool white dwarfs accreting from planetary systems: from the UV to the optical
• On the pollution of white dwarfs by exo-Oort cloud comets
• The white dwarf planet WD J0914+1914 b: barricading potential rocky pollutants?
• White Dwarfs with Infrared Excess from LAMOST Data Release 5
• A transmission spectrum of the planet candidate WD 1856+534 b and a lower limit to its mass
• White dwarf planetary debris dependence on physical structure distributions within asteroid belts
• A power law decay evolution scenario for polluted single white dwarfs
• Gemini/GMOS Transmission Spectroscopy of the Grazing Planet Candidate WD 1856+534 b
• Transiting Disintegrating Planetary Debris around WD 1145+017
• The polluted atmosphere of the white dwarf NLTT 25792 and the diversity of circumstellar environments
• The evolution of catastrophically evaporating rocky planets
• The approximate Coupled-Cluster methods CC2 and CC3 in a finite magnetic field
• X-ray photolysis of CH${}_3$COCH${}_3$ ice: Implications for the radiation effects of compact objects towards astrophysical ices
• Characterizing the Chemistry of Planetary Materials Around White Dwarf Stars
• WD 1145+017: Alternative models of the atmosphere, dust clouds, and gas rings
• Velocity-imaging the rapidly precessing planetary disc around the white dwarf HE 1349-2305 using Doppler tomography
• Search for giant planets around seven white dwarfs in the Hyades cluster with the Hubble Space Telescope
• Periodic optical variability and debris accretion in white dwarfs: a test for a causal connection
• Generating metal-polluting debris in white dwarf planetary systems from small-impact crater ejecta
• Birth cluster simulations of planetary systems with multiple super-Earths: initial conditions for white dwarf pollution drivers
• Probing the Survival of Planetary Systems in Globular Clusters with Tidal Disruption Events
• Discovery of magnetically guided metal accretion onto a polluted white dwarf
• Atmospheric Temperature Inversions and He I 5876 Core Profile Structure in White Dwarfs
• Asteroid belt survival through stellar evolution: dependence on the stellar mass
• The Effect of a Magnetic Field on the Dynamics of Debris Discs Around White Dwarfs
• High resolution ALMA and HST imaging of $\kappa$CrB: a broad debris disc around a post-main sequence star with low-mass companions
• Polluting White Dwarfs with Oort Cloud Comets
• Circumstellar Disks at White Dwarfs: Observations
• The Yarkovsky effect in REBOUNDx
• Magnetic interactions in orbital dynamics
• Non-LTE spectral models for the gaseous debris-disk component of Ton 345
• The Fate of Oceans on First-Generation Planets Orbiting White Dwarfs
• Can tidal evolution lead to close-in planetary bodies around white dwarfs I: Orbital period distribution
• A Study of Ro-vibrational OH Emission from Herbig Ae/Be Stars
• Effects from different grades of stickiness between icy and silicate particles on carbon depletion in protoplanetary disks
• Rapid destruction of planetary debris around white dwarfs through aeolian erosion
• Statistics of Magrathea exoplanets beyond the Main Sequence. Simulating the long-term evolution of circumbinary giant planets with TRES
• Recurrent mini-outbursts and a magnetic white dwarf in the symbiotic system FN Sgr
• Post-main sequence thermal evolution of planetesimals
• High-resolution resonant portraits of a single-planet white dwarf system
• Potential for life to exist and be detected on Earth-like planets orbiting white dwarfs
• Can tidal evolution lead to close-in planetary bodies around white dwarfs II: volcanism and transits
• Serendipitous discovery of a dusty disc around WDJ181417.84-735459.83
• Short-term stability of particles in the WD J0914+1914 white dwarf planetary system
• Unbound Close Stellar Encounters in the Solar Neighborhood
• Astrophysics with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• White Dwarf Variability with gPhoton: Pulsators
• Precision Astrometry of the Exoplanet Host Candidate GD 66
• Small and Close-In Planets are Uncommon Around A-type Stars
• Interstellar Meteors from Tidal Disruption of Rocky Planets on Eccentric Orbits Around M Dwarfs
• Planetesimals drifting through dusty and gaseous white dwarf debris discs: Types I, II and III-like migration
• A half-ring of ionized circumstellar material trapped in the magnetosphere of a white dwarf merger remnant
• The Elemental Compositions of Extrasolar Planetesimals
• Origin of Ca II emission around polluted white dwarfs
• An Imaging Search for Post-Main-Sequence Planets of Sirius B
• Chemical evolution of an evaporating lava pool
• Spectroscopy of TOI-1259B -- an unpolluted white dwarf companion to an inflated warm Saturn
• White dwarf constraints on geological processes at the population level
• Gyr-timescale destruction of high-eccentricity asteroids by spin and why 2006 HY51 has been spared
• Binary asteroid dissociation and accretion around white dwarfs
• PHL 5038AB: Is the brown dwarf causing pollution of its white dwarf host star?
• J-PLUS: The fraction of calcium white dwarfs along the cooling sequence
• Gaia white dwarfs with infrared excess I. The 100 pc catalogue
• Engulfment of a hot Jupiter as a possible origin of the rapid spin and internal spin misalignment of the planet-hosting red giant Kepler-56
• Diversity of Exoplanets
• Spectropolarimetry of stars across the H-R diagram
• Can the dustiest main sequence stars tell us about the rocky planet formation process?
• Three-body Mean Motion Resonance Chains as a Delivery Mechanism for White Dwarf Pollution
• TOI-1259Ab: A Warm Jupiter Orbiting a K-dwarf White-Dwarf Binary is on a Well-aligned Orbit
• Host Galaxy Effects in the Susy Model for Supernovae Ia
• Extrasolar enigmas: from disintegrating exoplanets to exoasteroids
• Detection and Preliminary Characterisation of Polluted White Dwarfs from Gaia EDR3 and LAMOST
• Detecting water ice and vapor disks originating from icy planetary bodies around white dwarfs with future PRIMA observations
• Atmospheric Signatures of Common Envelope Evolution in White Dwarf Planets