VLT imaging survey of giant planets around nearby young white dwarfs

Abstract We are imaging Gaia-selected young massive white dwarfs in the 40 pc solar neighborhood with the ESO-VLT (ERIS LGS AO instrument) to search for >5 Jupiter mass companions. These white dwarfs have 2.5-5 M ⊙ Main Sequence (MS) progenitors, and offer the unique possibility to test the formation of giant planets around intermediate mass stars, assuming these planets can survive post-MS evolution of their host stars. White dwarfs feature key advantages over their progenitor MS stars to spatially resolve giant planet companions in terms of (1) contrast and (2) angular separation. We limit ourselves to young white dwarfs with total ages (MS lifetime + white dwarf cooling age) < 1 Gyr which assures that any giant planets would be self-luminous and bright enough to be detectable (H-band < 25 mag). So far, we have obtained high angular resolution data for 10 white dwarfs with VLT/ERIS, with no confirmed detections, which might imply giant planets do not form around intermediate-mass MS stars, due to the rapid photoevaporation of their circumstellar disks caused by the host stars’ elevated FUV and X-ray irradiation. We keep searching.