Searching for Magrathea:

"Out of the utter blackness stabbed a sudden point of blinding light. It crept up by slight degrees and spread sideways in a thin crescent blade, and within seconds two suns were visible, furnaces of light, searing the black edge of the horizon with white fire.”

From ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ (book, Adams 1979).

Magrathea is a planet orbiting a binary star burning with ‘white fire’, which we interpreted to be two white dwarfs, as they emit white light instead of yellow, like our Sun in the visible band.

Concept:

Starting from a discussion with Nicola Tamanini, that we published in Tamanini & Danielski 2019 - Nature Astronomy, we have developed a way to detect circumbinary exoplanets orbiting Double White Dwarfs.

Our work opened a new window on the study of exoplanets beyond the Main Sequence, offering the only possibility for detecting bound exoplanets everywhere in the Milky Way and in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We further developed the study in Danielski et al, 2019 - A&A with the collaboration of Valeria Korol.

Since then the team has been expanding on a fully interdisciplinary level, to better constrain the planetary population that LISA will be able to detect.

Team:

Camilla Danielski - Planetary systems expert and Team coordinator.

Nicola Tamanini - GWs expert

Gabriele Columba (PhD) - Researcher on circumbinary exoplanet

Neil J. Cornish - LISA data analysis expert

Andris Dorozsmai (PhD) - Researcher on triple systems

Vaidehi Gupta (MSc) - Researcher on LISA third body detection

Nikolaos Karnesis - LISA data analysis expert

Micheal Katz - LISA data analysis expert

Valeria Korol - LISA DWD expert

Sebastiano Ledda (MSc) - Researcher on Planetary formation

Tyson B. Littenberg - LISA data analysis expert

Arianna Nigioni (MSc) - Researcher on circumbinary system dynamics

Silvia Toonen - Triple systems and DWD expert

Martina Toscani - GWs expert

Diego Turrini - Planetary formation expert

Publications and Topic:

• Danielski et al, in prep. - LISA Bayesian populations detection
• Nigioni, Turrini, Danielski in prep. - Orbital stability
• Ledda, Danielski, Turrini 2023, A&A - Second generation formation
• Columba, Danielski et al, 2023, A&A - Long term evolution from MS to WD
• Katz, Danielski et al, 2022, A&A - LISA bayesian detection
• Danielski et al, 2019, A&A - LISA population detection
• Tamanini & Danielski 2019, Nat Astronomy - Method description