Program: GN-2006A-Q-17

The nearby metal-rich white dwarf GD362 has a recently discovered infra-red excess emission that can only be explained by the presence of a circumstellar debris dust disk. Accretion from the disk is the most likely source of the metals in the star's photosphere, and the dust disk itself is likely the result of the tidal disruption of an asteroid or comet that strayed too close to the white dwarf. In turn, this suggests the presence of an old planetary system. We propose to make a deep near-IR imaging observation of GD362 to search for resolved proper motion companions as low in mass as ~10Mjup.