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arXiv 1408.2832astro-ph.EP
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利用周期性热辐射寻找白矮星周围的岩石小行星

Finding rocky asteroids around white dwarfs by their periodic thermal emission

Henry Lin, Abraham Loeb

摘要:

由于白矮星很小,轨道物体和白矮星的热辐射之间的对比度与主序星相比显着增强。此外,比月球小得多的岩石天体没有大气层,并且被潮汐锁定在白矮星上。我们发现,这导致温度之间的对比,他们的白天和黑夜的一面,为了统一,应导致时间的变化,红外线通量的轨道周期为$\sim 0.2$至$\sim 2$天。地面望远镜可以在几个小时的曝光时间内探测到天狼星B周围质量小到月球质量$M_L$的$1\%$的物体。詹姆斯韦伯太空望远镜(JWST)可能能够探测到大多数附近白矮星周围像$10^{-3} M_L$这样小的物体。最严格的限制通常会放在12,000 K的白矮星上,其罗氏区与尘埃升华区重合。将白矮星周围小行星的丰度限制为它们的地面温度(以及年龄)的函数,为行星形成的物理学提供了一个新的探索。

英文摘要:

Since white dwarfs are small, the contrast between the thermal emission of an orbiting object and a white dwarf is dramatically enhanced compared to a main sequence host. Furthermore, rocky objects much smaller than the moon have no atmospheres and are tidally locked to the white dwarf. We show that this leads to temperature contrasts between their day and night side of order unity that should lead to temporal variations in infrared flux over an orbital period of $\sim 0.2$ to $\sim 2$ days. Ground based telescopes could detect objects with a mass as small as $1\%$ of the lunar mass $M_L$ around Sirius B with a few hours of exposure. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may be able to detect objects as small as $10^{-3} M_L$ around most nearby white dwarfs. The tightest constraints will typically be placed on 12,000 K white dwarfs, whose Roche zone coincides with the dust sublimation zone. Constraining the abundance of minor planets around white dwarfs as a function of their surface temperatures (and therefore age) provides a novel probe for the physics of planetary formation.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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