How dust particles orbiting white dwarfs can reveal undetected co-orbiting exoplanets
6 affiliations
- 1Department of Physics, Democritus University of Thrace
- 2Department of Mathematics “Tullio Levi-Civita”, University of Padua
- 3Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- 4Centre for Exoplanets and Habitability, University of Warwick
- 5Centre for Space Domain Awareness, University of Warwick
- 6Department of Physics, University of Warwick
Abstract
Context . Mounting observations of transiting dusty debris orbiting white dwarfs (WDs) display complex signatures that often feature orbital period drifts. The asteroid or planet progenitor of this debris might still be partly intact on a near-circular orbit that is inclined or coplanar, with a period that is similar to that of the dust. Alternatively, the debris could persist concurrently with other intact asteroids or planets that had tidally circularised around the WD at a later time, but still remain directly unobservable.
Aims . We sought to first improve the identification of this detectability threshold by expanding our previous investigation of the WD-secondary-dust co-orbital circular restricted three-body problem (CRTBP) to higher secondary masses corresponding to Ceres, Mercury, Earth, and Neptune. Next, we continued to explore the link between the analytic and numerical characterisations of the CRTBP.
Methods . First, we computed families of periodic orbits in the 1/1 mean-motion-resonance (MMR) in both the planar and spatial CRTBP cases, where the dust is on an arbitrarily eccentric orbit. Second, we generated global phase space portraits with dynamical stability (DS) maps. Third, we determined observational links with debris located in very close proximity to WDs via N -body simulations.
Results . For each method we applied, we report a novel set of results. These include three newly discovered bifurcation points, B T ⁴ , B cs ⁴ , and B cs ⁵ , two branches of asymmetric periodic orbits, called A ₂ and A ₃ , at high dust eccentricity regime in the 2D-CRTBP, and two families of symmetric orbits in the 3D-CRTBP. The maps reveal stability domains as a function of the dust’s eccentricity, argument of pericentre, and slight semi-major axis deviations from the 1/1 MMR. The N -body simulations reveal that over 10 yr, mass analogues of Mercury, Earth, and Neptune generate orbital period deviations in the dust of, respectively, ∼1–10 s, ∼10–100 s, and over 100 s.
Conclusions . We identified strong links between analytic periodic orbits, numerical DS maps, and numerical N -body simulations. The observed period deviations are easily detectable, aiding in efforts to obtain indirect detections of exoplanets orbiting WDs.
Versions
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BibTeX
@article{antoniadou2026dust,
title = {{How dust particles orbiting white dwarfs can reveal undetected co-orbiting exoplanets}},
author = {Kyriaki I. Antoniadou and Dimitri Veras},
journal = {Astronomy \& Astrophysics},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/202661508},
url = {https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202661508},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - How dust particles orbiting white dwarfs can reveal undetected co-orbiting exoplanets
AU - Kyriaki I. Antoniadou
AU - Dimitri Veras
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
JO - Astronomy & Astrophysics
DO - 10.1051/0004-6361/202661508
UR - https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202661508
AB - Context . Mounting observations of transiting dusty debris orbiting white dwarfs (WDs) display complex signatures that often feature orbital period drifts. The asteroid or planet progenitor of this debris might still be partly intact on a near-circular orbit that is inclined or coplanar, with a period that is similar to that of the dust. Alternatively, the debris could persist concurrently with other intact asteroids or planets that had tidally circularised around the WD at a later time, but still remain directly unobservable. Aims . We sought to first improve the identification of this detectability threshold by expanding our previous investigation of the WD-secondary-dust co-orbital circular restricted three-body problem (CRTBP) to higher secondary masses corresponding to Ceres, Mercury, Earth, and Neptune. Next, we continued to explore the link between the analytic and numerical characterisations of the CRTBP. Methods . First, we computed families of periodic orbits in the 1/1 mean-motion-resonance (MMR) in both the planar and spatial CRTBP cases, where the dust is on an arbitrarily eccentric orbit. Second, we generated global phase space portraits with dynamical stability (DS) maps. Third, we determined observational links with debris located in very close proximity to WDs via N -body simulations. Results . For each method we applied, we report a novel set of results. These include three newly discovered bifurcation points, B T ⁴ , B cs ⁴ , and B cs ⁵ , two branches of asymmetric periodic orbits, called A ₂ and A ₃ , at high dust eccentricity regime in the 2D-CRTBP, and two families of symmetric orbits in the 3D-CRTBP. The maps reveal stability domains as a function of the dust’s eccentricity, argument of pericentre, and slight semi-major axis deviations from the 1/1 MMR. The N -body simulations reveal that over 10 yr, mass analogues of Mercury, Earth, and Neptune generate orbital period deviations in the dust of, respectively, ∼1–10 s, ∼10–100 s, and over 100 s. Conclusions . We identified strong links between analytic periodic orbits, numerical DS maps, and numerical N -body simulations. The observed period deviations are easily detectable, aiding in efforts to obtain indirect detections of exoplanets orbiting WDs.
SN - 0004-6361
SN - 1432-0746
ER -