Serendipitous discovery of a dusty disc around WDJ181417.84-735459.83

E. González Egea, D. Koester, L. K. Rogers, F. Marocco, W. J. Cooper, J. C. Beamin, B. Burningham, A. Day-Jones, J. Forbrich, D. J. Pinfield

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Abstract

Spectroscopic observations of white dwarfs reveal that many of them are polluted by exoplanetary material, whose bulk composition can be uniquely probed this way. We present a spectroscopic and photometric analysis of the DA white dwarf WDJ181417.84$-$735459.83, an object originally identified to have a strong infrared excess in the 2MASS and WISE catalogues that we confirmed to be intrinsic to the white dwarf, and likely corresponding to the emission of a dusty disc around the star. The finding of Ca, Fe and Mg absorption lines in two X-SHOOTER spectra of the white dwarf, taken 8 years apart, is further evidence of accretion from a dusty disc. We do not report variability in the absorption lines between these two spectra. Fitting a blackbody model to the infrared excess gives a temperature of 910$\pm50$ K. We have estimated a total accretion flux from the spectroscopic metal lines of $|\dot{\rm M}| = 1.784 \times 10^{9}\, $g s$^{-1}$.
Original languageEnglish
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Dec 2020

Keywords

  • astro-ph.SR
  • astro-ph.EP

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