2025MNRAS.540..746B -
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 540, 746-773 (2025/June-2)
A machine-learning compositional study of exoplanetary material accreted onto five helium-atmosphere white dwarfs with cecilia.
BADENAS-AGUSTI M., XU S., VANDERBURG A., DE K., DUFOUR P., ROGERS L.K., HOYOS S., BLOUIN S., VIANA J., BONSOR A. and ZUCKERMAN B.
Abstract (from CDS):
We present the first application of the machine learning (ML) pipeline cecilia to determine the physical parameters and photospheric composition of five metal-polluted He-atmosphere white dwarfs without well-characterized elemental abundances. To achieve this, we perform a joint and iterative Bayesian fit to their SDSS (R = 2000) and Keck/ESI (R = 4500) optical spectra, covering the wavelength range from about 3800 to 9000 Å. Our analysis measures the abundances of at least two - and up to six - chemical elements in their atmospheres with a predictive accuracy similar to that of conventional WD analysis techniques ($\approx$0.20 dex). The white dwarfs with the largest number of detected heavy elements are SDSS J0859$+$5732 and SDSS J2311-0041, which simultaneously exhibit O, Mg, Si, Ca, and Fe in their Keck/ESI spectra. For all systems, we find that the bulk composition of their pollutants is largely consistent with those of primitive CI chondrites to within 1-2$\sigma$. We also find evidence of statistically significant ($>2\sigma$) oxygen excesses for SDSS J0859$+$5732 and SDSS J2311-0041, which could point to the accretion of oxygen-rich exoplanetary material. In the future, as wide-field astronomical surveys deliver millions of public WD spectra to the scientific community, cecilia aspires to unlock population-wide studies of polluted WDs, therefore helping to improve our statistical knowledge of extrasolar compositions.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.
Journal keyword(s):
methods: data analysis - techniques: spectroscopic - planets and satellites: composition - stars: abundances - stars: atmospheres - white dwarfs
Simbad objects:
8
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