ARCSAT ID NUMBER: AS05

DESCRIPTIVE TITLE: SPAMS: The Search for Planets Around post-Main
Sequence stars (UW Pre-MAP)

PI: Brett Morris (UW)

OBSERVER(S): Brett Morris (UW), Doug Branton (UW, AUEG)

UNCERTIFIED/UNTRAINED OBSERVERS: Andrew Yetter & Aislynn Wallach (UW,
Pre-MAP)

COLLABORATORS: N/A
 
CONTACT INFORMATION: bmmorris@uw.edu, 631-860-5116

NUMBER OF WEEKS REQUESTED: 2

TIME REQUESTED:

We'd nights spread throughout the quarter to catch white dwarf targets 
spread uniformly in RA. Preferably these woudl come in 3-4 night
blocks 
each month totalling ~9-12 nights, so we request two weeks. The
few-night
long blocks allows us to observe multiple targets for one whole night 
each. If the FlareCam schedule is strictly limiting, we prefer to
spread 
out the nights as much as possible within the available FlareCam time
to 
maximize the number of targets that we can observe and the maximum
possible
duration of each observation.

INSTRUMENT: FlareCam

FILTERS: gr or VR (no strong preference)

COMMENTS: See time requested above. We'd appreciate anything that can
be done to check 
that ARCSAT is tracking as precisely as possible, as we track single
targets for 
>6 hours in these observations.

BRIEF SCIENCE JUSTIFICATION:

The Kepler Mission has shown that Sun-like stars host planets in
abundance
(Petigura et al. 2013) but little theoretical work has been done to
describe 
what happens to planets when their Sun-like host stars leave the main
sequence 
(Agol 2011). Spectroscopy of white dwarf atmospheres has revealed 
metal pollution indicative of active accretion of rocky material
(Gansicke et
al. 2012). One such chunk of disinitegrating planetary debris near the
tidal 
disruption radius was recently discovered using K2 observations of a
metal 
polluted white dwarf (Vanderburg et al. 2015).

We propose a non-contiguous two-week run of short cadence, high S/N,
time-series 
photometry of bright white dwarfs that we will use to to search for
planets and 
planetary debris orbiting the brightest white dwarfs available from
APO as part 
of SPAMS: the Search for Planets Around post-Main Sequence stars. Now
having served 
four UW Pre-MAP undergraduate researchers, the observations will be
collected with 
and for freshman undergraduates who are doing research for credit with
the PI in the 
winter quarter of 2016. They will learn to reduce photometry and use
periodicity 
searches to hunt for planets.

We have identified several metal polluted white dwarfs and a few
exceptionally 
bright white dwarfs (V<13) that will be visible from APO in this
quarter. 
Below is a target list for each month of the quarter, with targets
that are observable
continuously for more than 60% of the night between astronomical
twilights, while above
ARCSAT's minimum pointing limit.

Early January: WD 0310-688 (V=11.37), WD 0326-273_13.77, WD 0413-077
(V=9.52), WD 0426+588 (V=12.43), WD 0435-088 (V=13.78)
Early February: WD 0426+588 (V=12.43), WD 0435-088 (V=13.78)
Early March: WD 0435-088 (V=13.78), WD 0806-661 (V=13.73)
Late March: WD 0738-172 (V=13.02), WD 0806-661 (V=13.73), WD 0912+536
(V=13.88), WD 1134+300 (V=12.48)