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The DODO survey - II. A Gemini direct imaging search for substellar and planetary mass companions around nearby equatorial and Northern hemisphere white dwarfs

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posted on 2012-10-24, 09:21 authored by E. Hogan, M. R. Burleigh, F. J. Clarke
The aim of the Degenerate Objects around Degenerate Objects (DODO) survey is to search for very low-mass brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets in wide orbits around white dwarfs via direct imaging. The direct detection of such companions would allow the spectroscopic investigation of objects with temperatures much lower (<500 K) than the coolest brown dwarfs currently observed. These ultra-low-mass substellar objects would have spectral types >T8.5, and so could belong to the proposed Y dwarf spectral sequence. The detection of a planet around a white dwarf would prove that such objects can survive the final stages of stellar evolution and place constraints on the frequency of planetary systems around their progenitors (with masses between 1.5 and 8 M⊙, i.e. early B to mid-F). This paper presents the results of a multi epoch J band common proper motion survey of 23 nearby equatorial and Northern hemisphere white dwarfs. We rule out the presence of any common proper motion companions, with limiting masses determined from the completeness limit of each observation, to 18 white dwarfs. For the remaining five targets, the motion of the white dwarf is not sufficiently separated from the non-moving background objects in each field. These targets require additional observations to conclusively rule out the presence of any common proper motion companions. From our completeness limits, we tentatively suggest that ≲5 per cent of white dwarfs have substellar companions with Teff≳ 500 K between projected physical separations of 60–200 au.

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Citation

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2009, 396 (4), pp. 2074-2086

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

issn

0035-8711

eissn

1365-2966

Copyright date

2009

Available date

2012-10-24

Publisher version

http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/396/4/2074

Language

en

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