J. H. Debes, D. W. Hoard, S. Wachter, D. T. Leisawitz, M. Cohen
With the launch of the {\em Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer} ({\em
WISE}), a new era of detecting planetary debris and brown dwarfs around white
dwarfs (WDs) has begun with the {\em WISE} InfraRed Excesses around Degenerates
(WIRED) Survey. The WIRED Survey is sensitive to substellar objects and dusty
debris around WDs out to distances exceeding 100 pc, well beyond the
completeness level of local WDs. In this paper, we present a cross-correlation
of the preliminary Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7) WD
Catalog between the {\em WISE}, Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), UKIRT
Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), and SDSS DR7 photometric catalogs. From
$\sim18,000$ input targets, there are {\em WISE} detections comprising 344
"naked" WDs (detection of the WD photosphere only), 1020 candidate WD+M dwarf
binaries, 42 candidate WD+brown dwarf (BD) systems, 52 candidate WD+dust disk
systems, and 69 targets with indeterminate infrared excess. We classified all
of the detected targets through spectral energy distribution model fitting of
the merged optical, near-IR, and {\em WISE} photometry. Some of these
detections could be the result of contaminating sources within the large
($\approx6\arcsec$) {\em WISE} point spread function; we make a preliminary
estimate for the rates of contamination for our WD+BD and WD+disk candidates,
and provide notes for each target-of-interest. Each candidate presented here
should be confirmed with higher angular resolution infrared imaging or infrared
spectroscopy. We also present an overview of the observational characteristics
of the detected WDs in the {\em WISE} photometric bands, including the relative
frequencies of candidate WD+M, WD+BD, and WD+disk systems.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.6162
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