MNRAS 445, 2794–2799 (2014) doi:10.1093/mnras/stu1926 Post-main-sequence debris from rotation-induced YORP break-up of small bodies Dimitri Veras,1‹ Seth A. Jacobson2,3 and Boris T. Gansicke¨ 1 1Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK 2Laboratoire Lagrange, Observatoire de la Coteˆ d’Azur, Boulevard de l’Observatoire, F-06304 Nice Cedex 4, France 3Bayerisches Geoinstitut, Universtat¨ Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany Accepted 2014 September 14. Received 2014 September 8; in original form 2014 July 24 ABSTRACT Downloaded from Although discs of dust and gas have been observed orbiting white dwarfs, the origin of this circumstellar matter is uncertain. We hypothesize that the in situ break-up of small bodies such as asteroids spun to fission during the giant branch phases of stellar evolution provides an important contribution to this debris. The YORP (Yarkovsky–O’Keefe–Radviesvki–Paddock) effect, which arises from radiation pressure, accelerates the spin rate of asymmetric asteroids, http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/ which can eventually shear themselves apart. This pressure is maintained and enhanced around dying stars because the outward push of an asteroid due to stellar mass loss is insignificant compared to the resulting stellar luminosity increase. Consequently, giant star radiation will destroy nearly all bodies with radii in the range 100 m–10 km that survive their parent star’s main-sequence lifetime within a distance of about 7 au; smaller bodies are spun apart to their strongest, competent components. This estimate is conservative and would increase for highly asymmetric shapes or incorporation of the inward drag due to giant star stellar wind. The resulting debris field, which could extend to thousands of au, may be perturbed at University of Colorado on October 21, 2014 by remnant planetary systems to reproduce the observed dusty and gaseous discs which accompany polluted white dwarfs. Key words: Kuiper belt: general – minor planets, asteroids: general – planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability – stars: AGB and post-AGB – stars: evolution – white dwarfs. by yielding a lower limit of the order of a micron, but no upper 1 INTRODUCTION limit (Reach et al. 2009). Because the discs are extremely com- Observations unambiguously demonstrate that single white dwarfs pact in radial extent (∼1R), planets have difficulty reaching such (WDs) harbour dusty and gaseous circumstellar discs. The mounting close separations. A single planet’s orbit will be pushed outwards discoveries, particularly within the last decade, result in a current by mass-loss during the giant branch phases of stellar evolution, tally of about 30 dusty discs (Zuckerman & Becklin 1987; Becklin and can reverse direction only by giant star/planet tides (Mustill & et al. 2005; Kilic et al. 2005; Reach et al. 2005; Farihi, Jura & Villaver 2012; Adams & Bloch 2013; Nordhaus & Spiegel 2013; Zuckerman 2009) and 7 gaseous discs (Gansicke¨ et al. 2006, 2008; Villaver et al. 2014), severe anisotropy in the mass-loss distribution Gansicke,¨ Marsh & Southworth 2007;Gansicke¨ 2011;Farihietal. (Veras, Hadjidemetriou & Tout 2013b), or through stellar flybys 2012; Melis et al. 2012); some systems include both dusty and (Veras et al. 2014b). All these scenarios are unlikely, as tidal pre- gaseous discs (Brinkworth et al. 2009; Melis et al. 2010; Brinkworth scriptions would have to be finely tuned to prevent engulfment into et al. 2012). Every one of these discs is accompanied by detections the star, mass-loss can be considered isotropic within a few hundred of metals in WD atmospheres, indicating accretion from the disc. au and the probability of a flyby causing a near-collisional orbital Although we know that the disc matter arises from remnant plan- perturbation is too low. etary systems, we do not know from what part of those systems. Systems with multiple planets present different difficulties. Be- Whether the progenitors, which remain undetected, are planets, as- cause mass-loss changes the stability boundary in multiplanet sys- teroids or comets, they are assumed to be tidally or sublimationally tems (Debes & Sigurdsson 2002; Voyatzis et al. 2013), giant branch disrupted into discs (Graham et al. 1990;Jura2003; Bear & Soker evolution can trigger gravitational scattering instabilities amongst 2013; Stone, Metzger & Loeb 2014; Veras et al. 2014a). Dust mod- the planets. Detailed simulations of two-planet (Veras et al. 2013b) elling provides partial constrains on the particle sizes in these discs and three-planet (Mustill, Veras & Villaver 2014) systems across all phases of evolution, including the main-sequence and WD phases, indicate that the frequency of planets scattered to near-collisional E-mail: [email protected] orbits with the WD is too small to explain the observations. C 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society Post-MS rotational fission of asteroids 2795 Smaller bodies transported inwards from an external reservoir 2008; Rossi, Marzari & Scheeres 2009). Acceleration is also re- represent more likely progenitors. Both compositionally and dy- sponsible for driving small bodies to rotational fission – the process namically, comets cannot be the primary precursor of the discs whereby objects with little or no tensile strength can fall apart and (Zuckerman et al. 2007; Veras, Shannon & Gansicke¨ 2014c), al- their elements enter a mutual orbit due to centrifugal accelerations though comets can contribute to some discs, particularly around the matching or exceeding gravitational accelerations (Scheeres 2007b; youngest WDs (Stone et al. 2014). Walsh, Richardson & Michel 2008; Jacobson & Scheeres 2011). Asteroids1 originating from an external belt are the more likely YORP-induced rotational fission leads to the creation of asteroid choice. By interacting with one planet, a fraction of a belt of debris pairs (Walsh et al. 2008;Pravecetal.2010) and binary asteroids can scatter close to or directly into the WD. Bonsor, Mustill & Wyatt (Jacobson & Scheeres 2011) which match the characteristics of (2011) showed how a planet plus a Kuiper belt analogue can scatter those observed in the Solar system. This fission also significantly some of the belt into inner regions of a WD system. Debes, Walsh affects the size–frequency distribution of the asteroids in the main & Stark (2012) demonstrated that a planet can trap exo-asteroid belt belt (Jacobson et al. 2014). members in an interior mean motion resonance before eventually Consider a solid body in orbit around a star. The evolution of the scattering them to the Roche radius of the WD. Frewen & Hansen spin (s) of this object may be expressed as (Scheeres 2007a) (2014) extended these studies and found that when the planet is of ds Y f a lower mass and eccentric, then more asteroids encounter the WD = √ , (1) 2 2 2 dt 2πρR a − e Downloaded from radius. 1 In summary, although explorations of the potential sources of disc where R is the mean radius of the body, ρ is its density, a and e are progenitors in WD systems are at an early stage, asteroids are likely the semimajor axis and eccentricity of its orbit, f is a force and Y to be the dominant source. This paper proposes that many asteroids ∈ [0, 1) is a constant determined by the physical properties of the will not survive the giant branch stages of stellar evolution intact due body. The value of Y may be thought of as the extent of asymmetry = = / to radiation-induced rotational fission. Consequently, the reservoir of the asteroid. For a perfectly symmetric body, Y 0 ds dt, http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/ of material available to form discs around WDs is composed of which means that the asteroid’s initial spin angular momentum smaller fragments than what was previously assumed. We describe is conserved and the asteroid maintains its original spin. Some this type of disruption in Section 2 and conclude in Section 3. Solar system-based examples include the asteroids 1862 Apollo, with Y = 0.022 (Kaasalainen et al. 2007) and 54509 YORP, with Y = 0.005 (Taylor et al. 2007). Observational limitations currently 2 SPIN EVOLUTION prevent us from measuring Y for small bodies residing outside of the Solar system. In this section, we first describe the primary driver of spin (Sec- The force f is given by equations 23– 26 of Scheeres (2007a), and tion 2.1) and the critical spin at which disruption occurs (Section 2.2) is a function of the incident stellar light pressure, the body’s albedo, before characterizing the spin evolution along the main sequence at University of Colorado on October 21, 2014 the fraction of radiation pressure due to specular reflection and the (Section 2.3), giant branches (Section 2.4) and WD (Section 2.5) Lambertian scattering coefficient. For the Solar system, this force phases of stellar evolution. We conclude with numerical simulations (f = f) is linearly proportional to the Solar radiation constant, and (Section 2.6). is approximately equal to 1017 kg m s−2. Therefore, we assume here for general planetary systems f = kf,wherek = L/L, such that 2.1 The YORP effect L denotes luminosity. The YORP (Yarkovsky–O’Keefe–Radviesvki–Paddock) effect is the rotational acceleration of a body due to the anisotropic absorp- 2.2 The critical disruption spin tion and radiation of light. The effect was first proposed in the Observations of Solar system asteroids exhibit a sharp and unmis- context of absorbing stellar UV and visible light and the emittance takable cutoff on a rotation period/radius diagram (originally fig. 1 of thermal radiation due to the local heating of the body (Rubincam of Harris 1994 and recently fig. 1 of Jacobson et al. 2014), sug- 2000), although the role of conducted heat is now considered as gesting that asteroids with radii greater than about 250 m break up possibly as important (Golubov & Krugly 2012).