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Most observations of polluted white dwarf atmospheres are consistent withaccretion of water depleted planetary material. Among tens of known cases,merely two cases involve accretion of objects that contain a considerable massfraction of water. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relativescarcity of these detections. Based on a new and highly detailed model, weevaluate the retention of water inside icy minor planets during the highluminosity stellar evolution that follows the main sequence. Our model fullyconsiders the thermal, physical, and chemical evolution of icy bodies,following their internal differentiation as well as water depletion, from themoment of their birth and through all stellar evolution phases preceding theformation of the white dwarf. We also account for different initialcompositions and formation times. Our results show that previous studies haveeither underestimated or overestimated water retention. We also reaffirm thatwater can survive in a variety of circumstances and in great quantities, andtherefore other possibilities are discussed in order to explain the infrequencyof water detections. We find that the most likely explanation is that waterdoes not survive the dissociation of tidally disrupted minor planets, andinstead a direct impact onto the white dwarf is required. We show that thispossibility is statistically plausible, and predict that if this hypothesis iscorrect, future observations of extremely water rich atmospheres will involveonly helium dominated DB white dwarfs.

Post main sequence evolution of icy minor planets: Implications for water retention and white dwarf pollution