Are there planets around white dwarf binaries?

The timing method can be used to search for exoplanets.

It uses some periodic signal from a star as a clock in order to search for the gravitational signal of a planet in orbit around it.

This method is particularly well suited for searching for planets in eclipsing binary systems, where the eclipse can be used as the stable clock.

Recently, increasing evidence points to the existence of a population of planets around binaries containing a white dwarf.

If confirmed this would be an exciting new population of planets that may even be second generation planets, formed out of the material expelled when one of the stars in the binary died and became a white dwarf. However, the evidence for these planets is still weak and inconclusive.

In this project, you will use data taken with Sheffield's suite of high speed cameras (ULTRASPEC, ULTRACAM and HiPERCAM) to search for timing variations in a large population of eclipsing white dwarf binaries and test whether or not these variations could be caused by planets.