A White Dwarf Accreting Asteroids

We propose to observe the isolated white dwarf GD 362 (D25 pc) to search forXray emission from the accretion of circumstellar material. Most isolated whitedwarfs have atmospheres that are either pure H or He, but GD 362 also exhibitsstrong metal lines, even though metals should settle out of the photosphere inonly a few years. In the last year, GD 362 was discovered to exhibit excessinfrared emission from orbiting dust that may have been produced by the tidaldisruption of an asteroid. Accretion from this dust can account for theatmospheric metals, and would produce at least 0.5e28 erg/s in Xrays. Ameasurement of the flux and spectrum of Xrays is needed to confirm theaccretion hypothesis, and determine how much H is accreted with the metals. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]