The rapidly evolving dust and gas extinction observed towards WD 1145+017 has
opened a real-time window onto the mechanisms for destruction-accretion of
planetary bodies onto white dwarf stars, and has served to underline the
importance of considering the dynamics of dust particles around such objects.
Here it is argued that the interaction between (charged) dust grains and the
stellar magnetic field is an important ingredient in understanding the physical
distribution of infrared emitting particles in the vicinity of such white
dwarfs. These ideas are used to suggest a possible model for WD 1145+017 in
which the unusual transit shapes are caused by opaque clouds of dust trapped in
the stellar magnetosphere. The model can account for the observed transit
periodicities if the stellar rotation is near 4.5 h, as the clouds of trapped
dust are then located near or within the co-rotation radius. The model requires
the surface magnetic field to be at least around some tens of kG. In contrast
to the eccentric orbits expected for large planetesimals undergoing tidal
disintegration, the orbits of magnetospherically-trapped dust clouds are
essentially circular, consistent with the observations.Comment: 5 pages, accepted to MNRAS Letter
