Postdoctoral Fellowship: AAPF: Probing exoplanet demographics with polluted white dwarfs

Isabella Trierweiler is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Yale University. Polluted white dwarfs are stellar remnants which are actively accreting material from orbiting debris. Trierweiler will study these systems in order to gain insights into the compositions and motions of planetary systems. This will be done by combining new and existing observations of polluted white dwarfs in binary systems. The project will also create a coding and data analysis workshop for high school students in the greater New Haven area. The demographics of exoplanets far beyond our solar neighborhood remain out of the reach of typical planet detection methods. However, polluted white dwarfs provide unique ways to probe the compositions and dynamics of planetary systems. Trierweiler will use the kinematics of polluted white dwarfs to probe variations in core-mass fractions resulting from galactic chemical evolution. In addition, forward-modeling constraints on planetary architectures from white dwarf pollution will enable a better understanding of the evolution of planetary orbits after the main sequence. Testing the effect of galactic chemical evolution on core-mass fractions connects the fields of galactic archaeology and exoplanet interiors. Further, connecting observed white dwarf planets to underlying trends in planetary architectures paves the way for interpreting white dwarf planet detections through direct imaging or microlensing surveys. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2602617 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Isabella Trierweiler | Institution: Trierweiler, Isabella, Los Angeles, CA | Award Amount: $330,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2602617 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2602617.html