Modeling Circumstellar Gas Emission around a White Dwarf Using cloudy

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 w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astronomical journal 2024-05, Vol.167 (5), p.248
Main Authors: Xu, Siyi, Yeh, Sherry, Rogers, Laura. K., Steele, Amy, Dennihy, Erik, Doyle, Alexandra E., Dufour, P., Klein, Beth L., Manser, Christopher J., Melis, Carl, Wang, Tinggui, Weinberger, Alycia J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical abundances
Chemical composition
Circumstellar gas
Debris disks
Dwarf stars
Emission lines
Emissions
Extrasolar planets
Extrasolar rocky planets
Gas absorption
Gas composition
Habitability
Photochemical reactions
Photoionization
Planet formation
Planetary composition
Planetesimals
Silicon
Thermal emission
White dwarf stars
White dwarfs
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Summary: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 photoionization code Cloudy to model the circumstellar gas emission around white dwarf Gaia J0611−6931 under some simplified assumptions. We found that most of the emission lines are saturated, and the line ratios approach 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 × 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.
ISSN:0004-6256
1538-3881
DOI:10.3847/1538-3881/ad3737