Characterizing planetary material accreted by cool helium-atmosphere white dwarfs using an exponentially decaying disc model

Abstract

We present Keck High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer observations and model atmosphere analysis for two nearby, cool, helium-dominated atmosphere white dwarfs that have been polluted by accretion: WD J1927-0355 and WD J2141-3300. Detected elements common to both white dwarfs are Mg, Ca, Ti, Cr, Fe, and Ni, with additional detections of Na, Al, Si, and Sr in WD J2141-3300. We present an approach for inferring the composition of the accreted material, by adopting a physically motivated model in which the mass accretion rate decays exponentially with time, which provides constraints on the time since the start of the accretion event. The accretion events were most likely to have begun at least 1 Myr ago, however, the characteristic disc lifetime could not be constrained due to degeneracies. Both white dwarfs were found to have accreted bulk planetary material with compositions similar to that of both bulk Earth and chondritic meteorites. The parent bodies causing pollution in both cases were inferred to be the mass of a small moon or dwarf planet.