Transiting Disintegrating Planetary Debris around WD 1145+017

Abstract

More than a decade after astronomers realized that disrupted planetary material likely pollutes the surfaces of many white dwarf stars, the discovery of transiting debris orbiting the white dwarf WD 1145+017 has opened the door to new explorations of this process. We describe the observational evidence for transiting planetary material and the current theoretical understanding (and in some cases lack thereof) of the phenomenon.

Invited review chapter. Accepted March 23, 2017 and published October 7, 2017 in the Handbook of Exoplanets. 15 pages, 10 figures

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Planetary Systems Around White Dwarfs
• A dearth of small particles in the transiting material around the white dwarf WD 1145+017
• The lifetimes of planetary debris discs around white dwarfs
• Embedding planetesimals into white dwarf discs from large distances
• Chaotic rotation and evolution of asteroids and small planets in high-eccentricity orbits around white dwarfs
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• Optical Observations of star clusters NGC 1513 and NGC 4147; white dwarf WD1145+017 and $K$ band imaging of star forming region Sh2-61 with the 3.6 meter Devasthal Optical Telescope
• There's No Place Like Home (in Our Own Solar System): Searching for ET Near White Dwarfs
• Extrasolar enigmas: from disintegrating exoplanets to exoasteroids
• The Drake Equation at 60: Reconsidered and Abandoned