A Young White Dwarf with an Infrared Excess

Abstract

Using observations of Spitzer/IRAC, we report the serendipitous discovery of excess infrared emission from a single white dwarf PG 0010+280. At a temperature of 27,220 K and a cooling age of 16 Myr, it is the hottest and youngest white dwarf to display an excess at 3-8 $\mu$m. The infrared excess can be fit by either an opaque dust disk within the tidal radius of the white dwarf or a 1300 K blackbody, possibly from an irradiated substellar object or a re-heated giant planet. PG 0010+280 has two unique properties that are different from white dwarfs with a dust disk: (i) relatively low emission at 8 $\mu$m and (ii) non-detection of heavy elements in its atmosphere from high-resolution spectroscopic observations with Keck/HIRES. The origin of the infrared excess remains unclear.

ApJ Letters, accepted

References in corpus (13)

• The frequency of planetary debris around young white dwarfs
• The UKIRT Wide Field Camera ZYJHK Photometric System: Calibration from 2MASS
• A gaseous metal disk around a white dwarf
• Inflating Hot Jupiters With Ohmic Dissipation
• Pollution of single white dwarfs by accretion of many small asteroids
• Externally-polluted white dwarfs with dust disks
• Survival of a brown dwarf after engulfment by a red giant star
• Six White Dwarfs with Circumstellar Silicates
• The frequency and infrared brightness of circumstellar discs at white dwarfs
• Infrared Emission from the Dusty Disk Orbiting GD 362, An Externally-Polluted White Dwarf
• Signs of a faint disc population at polluted white dwarfs
• Spitzer IRAC Observations of White Dwarfs. II. Massive Planetary and Cold Brown Dwarf Companions to Young and Old Degenerates
• A near-infrared spectroscopic detection of the brown dwarf in the post common envelope binary WD0137-349

Cited by in corpus (1)

• The frequency of gaseous debris discs around white dwarfs