White dwarfs with planetary remnants in the era of Gaia I: six emission line systems

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of six white dwarfs with gaseous debris discs using Gaia data, highlighting their diverse properties and key features such as strong infrared excess, high temperature, and numerous emission lines, advancing understanding of planetary remnants.

Contribution

First systematic survey of gaseous debris discs around white dwarfs using Gaia data, revealing their diversity and key observational characteristics.

Findings

Six new white dwarfs with gaseous debris discs identified.

Notable systems with extreme features like strong infrared excess and high temperature.

Record number of emission lines observed in one system.

Abstract

White dwarfs with emission lines from gaseous debris discs are among the rarest examples of planetary remnant hosts, but at the same time they are key objects for studying the final evolutionary stage of planetary systems. Making use of the large number of white dwarfs identified in Gaia DR2, we are conducting a survey of planetary remnants and here we present the first results of our search: six white dwarfs with gaseous debris discs. This first publication focuses on the main observational properties of these objects and highlights their most unique features. Three systems in particular stand out: WDJ084602.47+570328.64 displays an exceptionally strong infrared excess which defies the standard model of a geometrically-thin, optically-thick dusty debris disc; WDJ213350.72+242805.93 is the hottest gaseous debris disc host known with Teff=29282 K; and WDJ052914.32-340108.11, in which we identify a record number of 51 emission lines from five elements. These discoveries shed light on the underlying diversity in gaseous debris disc systems and bring the total number of these objects to 21. With these numbers we can now start looking at the properties of these systems as a class of objects rather than on a case-by-case basis.