TY - JOUR
T1 - The entry geometry and velocity of planetary debris into the Roche sphere of a white dwarf
AU - Veras, Dimitri
AU - Georgakarakos, Nikolaos
AU - Mustill, Alexander J.
AU - Malamud, Uri
AU - Cunningham, Tim
AU - Dobbs-Dixon, Ian
N1 - Funding Information:
and especially Jorge Naranjo for helping us with our numerical simulations. We also kindly thank Detlev Koester for providing the equivalent width data from fig. 1 of Koester & Wilken (2006). DV gratefully acknowledges the support of the STFC via an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship (grant ST/P003850/1), AJM acknowledges funding from the Swedish Research Council (starting grant 2017-04945), and TC has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme n. 677706 (WD3D).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s).
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Our knowledge of white dwarf planetary systems predominately arises from the region within a few Solar radii of the white dwarfs, where minor planets breakup, form rings and discs, and accrete on to the star. The entry location, angle, and speed into this Roche sphere has rarely been explored but crucially determines the initial geometry of the debris, accretion rates on to the photosphere, and ultimately the composition of the minor planet. Here, we evolve a total of o v er 10 5 asteroids with single-planet N -body simulations across the giant branch and white dwarf stellar evolution phases to quantify the geometry of asteroid injection into the white dwarf Roche sphere as a function of planetary mass and eccentricity. We find that lower planetary masses increase the extent of anisotropic injection and decrease the probability of head-on (normal to the Roche sphere) encounters. Our results suggest that one can use dynamical activity within the Roche sphere to make inferences about the hidden architectures of these planetary systems.
AB - Our knowledge of white dwarf planetary systems predominately arises from the region within a few Solar radii of the white dwarfs, where minor planets breakup, form rings and discs, and accrete on to the star. The entry location, angle, and speed into this Roche sphere has rarely been explored but crucially determines the initial geometry of the debris, accretion rates on to the photosphere, and ultimately the composition of the minor planet. Here, we evolve a total of o v er 10 5 asteroids with single-planet N -body simulations across the giant branch and white dwarf stellar evolution phases to quantify the geometry of asteroid injection into the white dwarf Roche sphere as a function of planetary mass and eccentricity. We find that lower planetary masses increase the extent of anisotropic injection and decrease the probability of head-on (normal to the Roche sphere) encounters. Our results suggest that one can use dynamical activity within the Roche sphere to make inferences about the hidden architectures of these planetary systems.
KW - Kuiper belt: general
KW - minor planets, asteroids: general
KW - planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability
KW - stars: AGB and post-AGB
KW - stars: evolution
KW - white dwarfs
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U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stab1667
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stab1667
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85118455246
VL - 506
SP - 1148
EP - 1164
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
SN - 0035-8711
ER -