Spectral analysis of cool white dwarfs accreting from planetary systems: from the UV to the optical

TL;DR

This study uses UV and optical spectroscopy to analyze metal-rich cool white dwarfs, revealing details about their accreted planetary debris, with implications for understanding ancient planetary systems and stellar evolution.

Contribution

First combined UV and optical spectral analysis of cool white dwarfs, uncovering unique accretion signatures and compositional insights into their planetary debris.

Findings

Reasonable agreement between UV and optical data for two white dwarfs.

Discovery of water ice and magnesium silicates in accreted material.

Potential transformation of DQ stars into DZs due to planetary accretion.

Abstract

The accretion of planetary debris into the atmospheres of white dwarfs leads to the presence of metal lines in their spectra. Cool metal-rich white dwarfs, which left the main-sequence many Gyr ago, allow the study of the remnants of the oldest planetary systems. Despite their low effective temperatures ($T_\mathrm{eff}$), a non-neglible amount of their flux is emitted in the near ultraviolet (NUV), where many overlapping metal lines can potentially be detected. We have observed three metal-rich cool white dwarfs with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and compare the results determined from the NUV data with those previously derived from the analysis of optical spectroscopy. For two of the white dwarfs, SDSSJ1038-0036 and SDSSJ1535+1247, we find reasonable agreement with our previous analysis and the new combined fit of optical and NUV data. For the third object, SDSSJ0956+5912, including the STIS data leads to a ten percent lower $T_\mathrm{eff}$, though we do not identify a convincing explanation for this discrepancy. The unusual abundances found for SDSSJ0956+5912 suggest that the accreted parent-body was composed largely of water ice and magnesium silicates, and with a mass of up to $\simeq 2\times 10^{25}$g. Furthermore SDSSJ0956+5912 shows likely traces of atomic carbon in the NUV. While molecular carbon is not observed in the optical, we demonstrate that the large quantity of metals accreted by SDSSJ0956+5912 can suppress the C$_2$ molecular bands, indicating that planetary accretion can convert DQ stars into DZs (and not DQZs/DZQs).