Amornrat Aungwerojwit

Most cataclysmic variables (CVs) are discovered when they have an outburst generating an inherent selection bias against CVs that rarely, or never, outburst. CVs discovered by virtue of their spectroscopic characteristics are particularly valuable to offset this bias and we have used an established machine-learning technique to assist in searching 98 966 000 spectra obtained by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Survey (DESI) to find such CVs. DESI observations are much deeper than previous spectroscopic surveys and we have identified 1028 CVs, 221 of which are new including ten of the AMCVn subtype. We have spectroscopically confirmed 440 CV candidates and obtained 85 new or improved orbital periods.We present revised space density estimates based upon this new data. We have also added ten more to the eight known examples of an intriguing class of CVs which exhibit peculiar changes in accretion.

After its discovery in 2016, the white dwarf binary AR Scorpii (AR Sco) remained for several years the only white dwarf system to show pulsed radio emission associated with a fast-spinning white dwarf. The evolutionary origin and the emission mechanism for AR Sco are not completely understood, with different models proposed. Testing and improving these models requires observational input. Here, we report the results of a targeted search for other binary white dwarf pulsars like AR Sco. Using data from Gaia and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), we identified 56 candidate systems with similar properties to AR Sco, of which 26 were previously uncharacterized. These were subject to spectroscopic and photometric follow-up observations. Aside from one new binary white dwarf pulsar found, J191213.72−441045.1, which was reported in a separate work, we find no other systems whose characteristics are akin to AR Sco. The newly characterized systems are primarily young stellar objects (with 10 found) or cataclysmic variables (7 identifications), with the remaining being either blended or non-variable on short time-scales.

This paper investigates the frequency of transiting planetary systems around metal-polluted white dwarfs using high-cadence photometry from ULTRACAM and ULTRASPEC on the ground, and space-based observations with TESS. Within a sample of 313 metal-polluted white dwarfs with available TESS light curves, two systems known to have irregular transits are blindly recovered by box-least-squares and Lomb-Scargle analyses, with no new detections, yielding a transit fraction of |$0.8_{-0.4}^{+0.6}$| per cent. Planet detection sensitivities are determined using simulated transit injection and recovery for all light curves, producing upper limit occurrences over radii from dwarf to Kronian planets, with periods from 1 h to 27 d. The dearth of short-period, transiting planets orbiting polluted white dwarfs is consistent with engulfment during the giant phases of stellar evolution, and modestly constrains dynamical re-injection of planets to the shortest orbital periods. Based on simple predictions of transit probability, where (R_* + R_p)/a ≃ 0.01, the findings here are nominally consistent with a model where 100 per cent of polluted white dwarfs have circumstellar debris near the Roche limit; however, the small sample size precludes statistical confidence in this result. Single transits are also ruled out in all light curves using a search for correlated outliers, providing weak constraints on the role of Oort-like comet clouds in white dwarf pollution.

Combining archival photometric observations from multiple large-area surveys spanning the past 17 years, we detect long-term variability in the light curves of ZTF J032833.52−121945.27 (ZTF J0328−1219), ZTF J092311.41+423634.16 (ZTF J0923+4236), and WD 1145+017, all known to exhibit transits from planetary debris. ZTF J0328−1219 showed an overall fading in brightness from 2011 through to 2015, with a maximum dimming of ≃0.3 mag, and still remains ≃0.1 mag fainter compared to 2006. We complement the analysis of the long-term behaviour of these systems with high-speed photometry. In the case of ZTF J0923+4236 and WD 1145+017, the time-series photometry exhibits vast variations in the level of transit activity, both in terms of numbers of transits, as well as their shapes and depths, and these variations correlate with the overall brightness of the systems. Inspecting the current known sample of white dwarfs with transiting debris, we estimate that similar photometric signatures may be detectable in one in a few hundred of all white dwarfs. Accounting for the highly aligned geometry required to detect transits, our estimates imply that a substantial fraction of all white dwarfs exhibiting photospheric metal pollution from accreted debris host close-in planetesimals that are currently undergoing disintegration.

Combining archival photometric observations from multiple large-area surveys spanning the past 17 years, we detect long-term variability in the light curves of ZTFJ032833.52-121945.27 (ZTFJ0328-1219), ZTFJ092311.41+423634.16 (ZTFJ0923+4236) and WD1145+017, all known to exhibit transits from planetary debris. ZTFJ0328-1219 showed an overall fading in brightness from 2011 through to 2015, with a maximum dimming of ~0.3 mag, and still remains ~0.1 mag fainter compared to 2006. We complement the analysis of the long-term behaviour of these systems with high-speed photometry. In the case of ZTFJ0923+4236 and WD1145+017, the time-series photometry exhibits vast variations in the level of transit activity, both in terms of numbers of transits, as well as their shapes and depths, and these variations correlate with the overall brightness of the systems. Inspecting the current known sample of white dwarfs with transiting debris, we estimate that similar photometric signatures may be detectable in one in a few hundred of all white dwarfs. Accounting for the highly aligned geometry required to detect transits, our estimates imply that a substantial fraction of all white dwarfs exhibiting photospheric metal pollution from accreted debris host close-in planetesimals that are currently undergoing disintegration.

Light curves of the accreting white dwarf pulsator GW Librae spanning a 7.5-month period in 2017 were obtained as part of the Next-Generation Transit Survey. This data set comprises 787 h of photometry from 148 clear nights, allowing the behaviour of the long (hours) and short-period (20 min) modulation signals to be tracked from night to night over a much longer observing baseline than has been previously achieved. The long-period modulations intermittently detected in previous observations of GW Lib are found to be a persistent feature, evolving between states with periods ≃ 83 min and 2–4 h on time-scales of several days. The 20 min signal is found to have a broadly stable amplitude and frequency for the duration of the campaign, but the previously noted phase instability is confirmed. Ultraviolet observations obtained with the Cosmic Origin Spectrograph on-board the Hubble Space Telescope constrain the ultraviolet-to-optical flux ratio to ≃5 for the 4 h modulation, and ≲1 for the 20 min period, with caveats introduced by non-simultaneous observations. These results add further observational evidence that these enigmatic signals must originate from the white dwarf, highlighting our continued gap in theoretical understanding of the mechanisms that drive them.