Two substellar survivor candidates; one found and one missing
N. Walters, J. Farihi, T. R. Marsh, E. Breedt, P. W. Cauley, T. von, Hippel, J. J. Hermes

TL;DR
This paper reports the discovery and analysis of a substellar companion candidate orbiting a white dwarf, exploring its properties, potential origin, and implications for planetary survival during stellar evolution.
Contribution
It provides the first detailed characterization of a substellar survivor candidate orbiting a white dwarf, including spectroscopic analysis and implications for planetary survival.
Findings
The companion has a mass of approximately 69 Jupiter masses.
Infrared excess suggests a debris disk around the white dwarf.
Survivability of substellar objects depends on a mass threshold near 50 Jupiter masses.
Abstract
This study presents observations of two possible substellar survivors of post-main sequence engulfment, currently orbiting white dwarf stars. Infrared and optical spectroscopy of GD 1400 reveal a 9.98 h orbital period, where the benchmark brown dwarf has M, K, and a cooling age under 1 Gyr. A substellar mass in the lower range of allowed values is favoured by the gravitational redshift of the primary. Synthetic brown dwarf spectra are able to reproduce the observed CO bands, but lines below the bandhead are notably overpredicted. The known infrared excess towards PG 0010+281 is consistent with a substellar companion, yet no radial velocity or photometric variability is found despite extensive searches. Three independent stellar mass determinations all suggest enhanced mass loss associated with binary evolution, where the youngest total…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstro and Planetary Science · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life · Space exploration and regulation
