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Hunting for Polluted White Dwarfs and Other Treasures with Gaia XP Spectra and Unsupervised Machine Learning
- Source :
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol 970, Iss 2, p 181 (2024)
- Publication Year :
- 2024
- Publisher :
- IOP Publishing, 2024.
-
Abstract
- White dwarfs (WDs) polluted by exoplanetary material provide the unprecedented opportunity to directly observe the interiors of exoplanets. However, spectroscopic surveys are often limited by brightness constraints, and WDs tend to be very faint, making detections of large populations of polluted WDs difficult. In this paper, we aim to increase considerably the number of WDs with multiple metals in their atmospheres. Using 96,134 WDs with Gaia DR3 BP/RP (XP) spectra, we constructed a 2D map using an unsupervised machine-learning technique called Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) to organize the WDs into identifiable spectral regions. The polluted WDs are among the distinct spectral groups identified in our map. We have shown that this selection method could potentially increase the number of known WDs with five or more metal species in their atmospheres by an order of magnitude. Such systems are essential for characterizing exoplanet diversity and geology.
- Subjects :
- Gaia
White dwarf stars
DZ stars
Astrophysics
QB460-466
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 15384357
- Volume :
- 970
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Journal :
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsdoj.0d777e7f96c346248e6a4e854ced75da
- Document Type :
- article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad5d6e