Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0609045

From: Michael Jura [view email]

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 20:40:53 GMT (26kb)

Carbon Deficiency in Externally-Polluted White Dwarfs: Evidence for Accretion of Asteroids

Authors: M. Jura (UCLA)

Comments: 23 pages, 6 figures, accepted for ApJ

Existing determinations show that n(C)/n(Fe) is more than a factor of 10 below solar in the atmospheres of three white dwarfs that appear to be externally-polluted. These results are not easily explained if the stars have accreted interstellar matter, and we re-interpret these measurements as evidence that these stars have accreted asteroids of a chrondritic composition.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609045