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Hunting for Polluted White Dwarfs and Other Treasures with Gaia XP Spectra and Unsupervised Machine Learning

Authors :
Malia L. Kao
Keith Hawkins
Laura K. Rogers
Amy Bonsor
Bart H. Dunlap
Jason L. Sanders
M. H. Montgomery
D. E. Winget
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.

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