Bibcode
Gänsicke, B. T.; Aungwerojwit, A.; Marsh, T. R.; Dhillon, V. S.; Sahman, D. I.; Veras, Dimitri; Farihi, J.; Chote, P.; Ashley, R.; Arjyotha, S.; Rattanasoon, S.; Littlefair, S. P.; Pollacco, D.; Burleigh, M. R.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 818, Issue 1, article id. L7, 6 pp. (2016).
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2
2016
Citations
97
Refereed citations
88
Description
We obtained high-speed photometry of the disintegrating planetesimals
orbiting the white dwarf WD 1145+017, spanning a period of four weeks.
The light curves show a dramatic evolution of the system since the first
observations obtained about seven months ago. Multiple transit events
are detected in every light curve, which have varying durations
(≃3–12 minutes) and depths (≃10%–60%). The
time-averaged extinction is ≃11%, much higher than at the time of
the Kepler observations. The shortest-duration transits require that the
occulting cloud of debris has a few times the size of the white dwarf,
longer events are often resolved into the superposition of several
individual transits. The transits evolve on timescales of days, both in
shape and in depth, with most of them gradually appearing and
disappearing over the course of the observing campaign. Several transits
can be tracked across multiple nights, all of them recur on periods of
≃4.49 hr, indicating multiple planetary debris fragments on nearly
identical orbits. Identifying the specific origin of these bodies within
this planetary system, and the evolution leading to their current orbits
remains a challenging problem.