1997/09/30 by Joel Parriott, C. Alcock, Charles Alcock · 59 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Asymptotic giant branch #Comet #Main sequence #Orbit (dynamics) #Physics #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #White dwarf #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/305802
published in The Astrophysical Journal 501(1), 357-366 (IOP Publishing) · 19 pages, 8 figures, AASTeX-4.0, to be published in ApJ (7/1/98); replaced with slight modifications to intro text and references
arxiv created 1998/02/05 · openalex publication_date 1998/07/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The accretion of comets onto DA white dwarfs can produce observable metal absorption lines. We show here that comet systems around the progenitor main-sequence star are vulnerable to being lost during asymptotic giant branch mass loss, if the mass loss is sufficiently asymmetric to impart modest linear momentum to the white dwarf. This may have bearing on the frequency of observation of heavy elements in white dwarf stars and on inferences regarding the frequency of comet systems, if the imparted linear velocities of white dwarfs can be estimated.