糖心TV

Disintegration of Asteroids Around White Dwarfs

I will focus on the recent discovery of a very interesting white dwarf system that has: (i) an infrared excess from an orbiting dust disk; (ii) atmospheric pollution from accretion of planetary material; (iii) eclipses from six or more transiting asteroids, all within the white dwarf’s tidal radius; (iii) cool circumstellar gas, likely from collisions among the asteroids. I will also discuss how this object fit into our overall understanding of the fate of planetary systems around white dwarfs.