UNC Physics Colloquium

Andrew Vanderburg, MIT

“A Song of Ice and Fire: the Fate of Planetary Systems After Stellar Death”

Abstract: In the past 30 years, astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting
stars outside the solar system. Most of the exoplanets we know of today orbit stars
that will eventually exhaust their nuclear fuel, expand into red giants, shed their
outer layers, and contract into dense remnants called white dwarfs. How does the
process of stellar death affect any orbiting planets in the system? I will review
our knowledge of planets beyond the main sequence and discuss new insights gleaned
from our discoveries of two very different systems: a disintegrating minor planet
around WD 1145+017 and an intact giant planet candidate around WD 1856+534. I will
conclude by discussing the prospects for habitability in white dwarf systems long
after the host star’s death and how with some luck, we may be able to test these
ideas in the next decade.