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Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Title: Modeling Circumstellar Gas Emission around a White Dwarf Using Cloudy

Abstract: The chemical composition of an extrasolar planet is fundamental to its formation, evolution and habitability. In this study, we explore a new way to measure the chemical composition of the building blocks of extrasolar planets, by measuring the gas composition of the disrupted planetesimals around white dwarf stars. As a first attempt, we used the photo-ionization code Cloudy to model the circumstellar gas emission around a white dwarf Gaia J0611$-$6931 under some simplified assumptions. We found most of the emission lines are saturated and the line ratios approaching the ratios of thermal emission; therefore only lower limits to the number density can be derived. Silicon is the best constrained element in the circumstellar gas and we derived a lower limit of 10$^{10.3}$ cm$^{-3}$. In addition, we placed a lower limit on the total amount of gas to be 1.8 $\times$ 10$^{19}$ g. Further study is needed to better constrain the parameters of the gas disk and connect it to other white dwarfs with circumstellar gas absorption.
Comments: 14 pages, 10 figures, 4 table, accepted for publication in AJ
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2403.15794 [astro-ph.EP]
  (or arXiv:2403.15794v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)

Submission history

From: Siyi Xu [view email]
[v1] Sat, 23 Mar 2024 10:50:29 GMT (3588kb,D)

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