The Frequency of Debris Disks at White Dwarfs

Abstract

We present near- and mid-infrared photometry and spectroscopy from PAIRITEL, IRTF, and Spitzer of a metallicity-unbiased sample of 117 cool, hydrogen-atmosphere white dwarfs from the Palomar-Green survey and find five with excess radiation in the infrared, translating to a 4.3+2.7-1.2% frequency of debris disks. This is slightly higher than, but consistent with the results of previous surveys. Using an initial-final mass relation, we apply this result to the progenitor stars of our sample and conclude that 1-7Msol stars have at least a 4.3% chance of hosting planets; an indirect probe of the intermediate-mass regime eluding conventional exoplanetary detection methods. Alternatively, we interpret this result as a limit on accretion timescales as a fraction of white dwarf cooling ages; white dwarfs accrete debris from several generations of disks for ~10Myr. The average total mass accreted by these stars ranges from that of 200km asteroids to Ceres-sized objects, indicating that white dwarfs accrete moons and dwarf planets as well as Solar System asteroid analogues.

ApJ, in press

References in corpus (10)

• Planet formation around stars of various masses: The snow line and the frequency of giant planets
• The Chemical Composition of an Extrasolar Minor Planet
• The Initial-Final Mass Relation: Direct Constraints at the Low Mass End
• Pollution of single white dwarfs by accretion of many small asteroids
• Externally-polluted white dwarfs with dust disks
• Debris Disks Around White Dwarfs: The DAZ Connection
• The chemical diversity of exo-terrestrial planetary debris around white dwarfs
• A Spitzer White Dwarf Infrared Survey
• Near-Infrared Constraints on the Presence of Warm Dust at Metal-Rich, Helium Atmosphere White Dwarfs
• Finding Planets Around White Dwarf Remnants of Massive Stars

Cited by in corpus (51)

• A disintegrating minor planet transiting a white dwarf
• The frequency of planetary debris around young white dwarfs
• Observations of Protoplanetary Disk Structures
• Circumstellar Debris and Pollution at White Dwarf Stars
• The frequency and infrared brightness of circumstellar discs at white dwarfs
• Two Beyond-Primitive Extrasolar Planetesimals
• Drifting Asteroid Fragments Around WD 1145+017
• The unbiased frequency of planetary signatures around single and binary white dwarfs using $Spitzer$ and $Hubble$
• A Comprehensive Census of Nearby Infrared Excess Stars
• Precise Atmospheric Parameters for the Shortest Period Binary White Dwarfs: Gravitational Waves, Metals, and Pulsations
• 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
• The frequency of gaseous debris discs around white dwarfs
• The Drop during Less than 300 days of a Dusty White Dwarf's Infrared Luminosity
• Infrared observations of white dwarfs and the implications for the accretion of dusty planetary material
• The WIRED Survey. IV. New Dust Disks from the McCook & Sion White Dwarf Catalog
• WD 1145+017 Photometric Observations During 8 Months of High Activity
• Infrared-excess white dwarfs in the Gaia 100 pc sample
• Numerical Simulations of Gaseous Disks Generated from Collisional Cascades at the Roche Limits of White Dwarf Stars
• White dwarfs with planetary remnants in the era of Gaia I: six emission line systems
• The dust never settles: collisional production of gas and dust in evolved planetary systems
• Post main sequence evolution of icy minor planets: Implications for water retention and white dwarf pollution
• A second case of outbursts in a pulsating white dwarf observed by Kepler
• Dusty WDs in the $WISE$ All Sky Survey $\cap$ SDSS
• Evidence for Gas from a Disintegrating Extrasolar Asteroid
• A Word to the WISE: Confusion is Unavoidable for WISE-selected Infrared Excesses
• How Jupiters save or destroy inner Neptunes around evolved stars
• Detections and Constraints on White Dwarf Variability from Time-Series GALEX Observations
• WD 1145+017: Optical Activity During 2016-2017 and Limits on the X-Ray Flux
• SDSS J074511.56+194926.5: Discovery of a Metal-Rich and Tidally Distorted Extremely Low Mass White Dwarf
• A New Method for Finding Nearby White Dwarf Exoplanets and Detecting Biosignatures
• High-eccentricity migration of planetesimals around polluted white dwarfs
• Where are the Extrasolar Mercuries?
• WIRED for EC: New White Dwarfs with $\text{WISE}$ Infrared Excesses and New Classification Schemes from the Edinburgh-Cape Blue Object Survey
• Dusty Disks Around Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae
• On the detectability of transiting planets orbiting white dwarfs using LSST
• Distant White Dwarfs in the US Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station Parallax Sample
• Astrometric Gravitational-Wave Detection via Stellar Interferometry
• White Dwarfs with Infrared Excess from LAMOST Data Release 5
• Transiting Disintegrating Planetary Debris around WD 1145+017
• A Young White Dwarf with an Infrared Excess
• Insights into planet formation from debris disks: I. The solar system as an archetype for planetesimal evolution
• Characterizing the Chemistry of Planetary Materials Around White Dwarf Stars
• Tidal disruption versus planetesimal collisions as possible origins for the dispersing dust cloud around Fomalhaut
• Asteroid belt survival through stellar evolution: dependence on the stellar mass
• Crystal chemistry of three-component white dwarfs and neutron star crusts: phase stability, phase stratification, and physical properties
• UV-excess sources with a red/IR-counterpart: low-mass companions, debris disks and QSO selection
• Near-Infrared Imaging of White Dwarfs with Candidate Debris Disks
• The Statistics of Extended Debris Disks Measured with Gaia and Planck
• The Elemental Compositions of Extrasolar Planetesimals
• Gaia white dwarfs with infrared excess I. The 100 pc catalogue